Publications

Abstract

In a series of 5 experiments, we investigated whether the processing of phonologically assimilated utterances is influenced by language learning. Previous experiments had shown that phonological assimilations, such as /lean#bacon/→[leam bacon], are compensated for in perception. In this article, we investigated whether compensation for assimilation can occur without experience with an assimilation rule using automatic event-related potentials. Our first experiment indicated that Dutch listeners compensate for a Hungarian assimilation rule. Two subsequent experiments, however, failed to show compensation for assimilation by both Dutch and Hungarian listeners. Two additional experiments showed that this was due to the acoustic properties of the assimilated utterance, confirming earlier reports that phonetic detail is important in compensation for assimilation. Our data indicate that compensation for assimilation can occur without experience with an assimilation rule, in line with phonetic–phonological theories that assume that speech production is influenced by speech-perception abilities.

Abstract

Events are often perceived in multiple modalities. The co-occurring proximal visual and auditory stimuli events are mostly also causally linked to the distal event. This makes it difficult to evaluate whether learned correlation or perceived causation guides binding in multisensory perception. Piano tones are an interesting exception: Piano tones are associated with seeing key strokes but are directly caused by hammers that hit strings hidden from observation. We examined the influence of seeing the hammer or the key stroke on auditory temporal order judgments (TOJ). Participants judged the temporal order of a dog bark and a piano tone, while seeing the piano stroke shifted temporally relative to its audio signal. Visual lead increased "piano-first" responses in auditory TOJ, but more so if only the associated key stroke than if the sound-producing hammer was visible, though both were equally visually salient. This provides evidence for a learning account of audiovisual perception.

Abstract

Vowel normalization in speech perception was investigated in three experiments. The range of the second formant in a carrier phrase was manipulated and this affected the perception of a target vowel in a compensatory fashion: A low F2 range in the carrier phrase made it more likely that the target vowel was perceived as a front vowel, that is, with a high F2. Recent experiments indicated that this effect might be moderated by the lexical status of the constituents of the carrier phrase. Manipulation of the lexical status in the present experiments, however, did not affect vowel normalization. In contrast, the range of vowels in the carrier phrase did influence vowel normalization. If the carrier phrase consisted of mid-to-high front vowels only, vowel categories shifted only for mid-to-high front vowels. It is argued that these results are a challenge for episodic models of word recognition.

Abstract

In everyday speech, words may be reduced. Little is known about the consequences of such reductions for spoken word comprehension. This study investigated /t/-lenition in Dutch in two corpus studies and three perceptual experiments. The production studies revealed that /t/-lenition is most likely to occur after [s] and before bilabial consonants. The perception experiments showed that listeners take into account both phonological context, phonetic detail, and the lexical status of the form in the interpretation of codas that may or may not contain a lenited word-final /t/. These results speak against models of word recognition that make hard decisions on a prelexical level.

Abstract

Six aryepiglottic trills with varied laryngeal parameters were recorded using high-speed laryngoscopy to investigate the nature of the oscillatory behavior of the upper margin of the epilaryngeal tube. Image analysis techniques were applied to extract data about the patterns of aryepiglottic fold oscillation, with a focus on the oscillatory frequencies of the folds. The acoustic impact of aryepiglottic trilling is also considered, along with possible interactions between the aryepiglottic vibration and vocal fold vibration during the voiced trill. Overall, aryepiglottic trilling is deemed to be correctly labeled as a trill in phonetic terms, while also acting as a means to alter the quality of voicing to be auditorily harsh. In terms of its characterization, aryepiglottic vibration is considerably irregular, but it shows indications of contributing quasi-harmonic excitation of the vocal tract, particularly noticeable under conditions of glottal voicelessness. Aryepiglottic vibrations appear to be largely independent of glottal vibration in terms of oscillatory frequency but can be increased in frequency by increasing overall laryngeal constriction. There is evidence that aryepiglottic vibration induces an alternating vocal fold vibration pattern. It is concluded that aryepiglottic trilling, like ventricular phonation, should be regarded as a complex, if highly irregular, sound source.

Abstract

In discourse, older adults tend to be more verbose and more disfluent than young adults, especially when the task is difficult and when it places few constraints on the content of the utterance. This may be due to (a) language-specific deficits in planning the content and syntactic structure of utterances or in selecting and retrieving words from the mental lexicon, (b) a general deficit in inhibiting irrelevant information, or (c) the selection of a specific speech style. The possibility that older adults have a deficit in lexical retrieval is supported by the results of picture naming studies, in which older adults have been found to name objects less accurately and more slowly than young adults, and by the results of definition naming studies, in which older adults have been found to experience more tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states than young adults. The available evidence suggests that these age differences are largely due to weakening of the connections linking word lemmas to phonological word forms, though adults above 70 years of age may have an additional deficit in lemma selection.

Abstract

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a highly prevalent disorder with substantial heritability. Heritability has been shown to be substantial and higher in the variant of MDD characterized by recurrent episodes of depression. Genetic studies have thus far failed to identify clear and consistent evidence of genetic risk factors for MDD. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in two independent datasets. The first GWAS was performed on 1022 recurrent MDD patients and 1000 controls genotyped on the Illumina 550 platform. The second was conducted on 492 recurrent MDD patients and 1052 controls selected from a population-based collection, genotyped on the Affymetrix 5.0 platform. Neither GWAS identified any SNP that achieved GWAS significance. We obtained imputed genotypes at the Illumina loci for the individuals genotyped on the Affymetrix platform, and performed a meta-analysis of the two GWASs for this common set of approximately half a million SNPs. The meta-analysis did not yield genome-wide significant results either. The results from our study suggest that SNPs with substantial odds ratio are unlikely to exist for MDD, at least in our datasets and among the relatively common SNPs genotyped or tagged by the half-million-loci arrays. Meta-analysis of larger datasets is warranted to identify SNPs with smaller effects or with rarer allele frequencies that contribute to the risk of MDD.

Abstract

The present doctoral thesis investigates the temporal characteristics of the retrieval of semantic and syntactic word properties in language comprehension. In particular, an attempt is made to assess the retrieval order of semantic category and grammatical gender information, using the lateralized readiness potential and the inhibition-related N2 effect. Chapter 1 contains a general introduction. Chapter 2 reports an experiment that employs the two-choice go/nogo task in combination with EEG recordings to establish the retrieval order of semantic category and grammatical gender for written words presented in isolation. The results point to a time course where semantic information becomes available before syntactic information. Chapter 3 focuses on the retrieval of grammatical gender. In order to examine whether gender retrieval can be speeded up by context, nouns are presented in gender congruent and gender incongruent prime-target pairs and reaction times for gender decisions are measured. For stimulus onset asynchronies of 100 ms and 0 ms, gender congruent pairs show faster responses than incongruent ones, whereas there is no effect of gender congruity for a stimulus onset asynchrony of 300 ms. A simulation with a localist computational model that implements competition between gender representations (WEAVER; Roelofs, 1992) is able to capture these findings. In chapter 4, the gender congruency manipulation is transferred to another ERP experiment with the two-choice go/nogo task. As the time course of gender retrieval is altered through primes, the order relative to semantic category retrieval is assessed again. The results indicate that with gender congruent primes, grammatical gender becomes available before semantic category. Such a reversal of retrieval order, as compared to chapter 2, implies a parallel rather than a serial discrete arrangement of the retrieval processes, since the latter variant precludes changes in retrieval order. Finally, chapter 5 offers a summary and general discussion of the main findings.

Abstract

The recognition of a word makes available its semantic and
syntactic properties. Using electrophysiological recordings, we
investigated whether one set of these properties is available
earlier than the other set. Dutch participants saw nouns on a
computer screen and performed push-button responses: In
one task, grammatical gender determined response hand
(left/right) and semantic category determined response execution
(go/no-go). In the other task, response hand depended
on semantic category, whereas response execution depended
on gender. During the latter task, response preparation occurred
on no-go trials, as measured by the lateralized
readiness potential: Semantic information was used for
response preparation before gender information inhibited
this process. Furthermore, an inhibition-related N2 effect
occurred earlier for inhibition by semantics than for inhibition
by gender. In summary, electrophysiological measures
of both response preparation and inhibition indicated that
the semantic word property was available earlier than the
syntactic word property when participants read single
words.

Abstract

Muscular hypertrophy in callipyge sheep results from a single nucleotide substitution located in the genomic interval between the imprinted Delta, Drosophila, Homolog-like 1 (DLK1) and Maternally Expressed Gene 3 (MEG3). The mechanism linking the mutation to muscle hypertrophy is unclear but involves DLK1 overexpression. The mutation is contained within CLPG1 transcripts produced from this region. Herein we show that CLPG1 is expressed prenatally in the hypertrophy-responsive longissimus dorsi muscle by all four possible genotypes, but postnatal expression is restricted to sheep carrying the mutation. Surprisingly, the mutation results in nonimprinted monoallelic transcription of CLPG1 from only the mutated allele in adult sheep, whereas it is expressed biallelically during prenatal development. We further demonstrate that local CpG methylation is altered by the presence of the mutation in longissimus dorsi of postnatal sheep. For 10 CpG sites flanking the mutation, methylation is similar prenatally across genotypes, but doubles postnatally in normal sheep. This normal postnatal increase in methylation is significantly repressed in sheep carrying one copy of the mutation, and repressed even further in sheep with two mutant alleles. The attenuation in methylation status in the callipyge sheep correlates with the onset of the phenotype, continued CLPG1 transcription, and high-level expression of DLK1. In contrast, normal sheep exhibit hypermethylation of this locus after birth and CLPG1 silencing, which coincides with DLK1 transcriptional repression. These data are consistent with the notion that the callipyge mutation inhibits perinatal nucleation of regional chromatin condensation resulting in continued elevated transcription of prenatal DLK1 levels in adult callipyge sheep. We propose a model incorporating these results that can also account for the enigmatic normal phenotype of homozygous mutant sheep.

Abstract

Children are able to take multiple perspectives in talking about entities and events. But the nature of children's sensitivities to the complex patterns of perspective-taking in adult language is unknown. We examine perspective-taking in four- and six-year-old Tamil-speaking children describing placement events, as reflected in the use of a general placement verb (veyyii ‘put’) versus two fine-grained caused posture expressions specifying orientation, either vertical (nikka veyyii ‘make stand’) or horizontal (paDka veyyii ‘make lie’). We also explore whether animacy systematically promotes shifts to a fine-grained perspective. The results show that four- and six-year-olds switch perspectives as flexibly and systematically as adults do. Animacy influences shifts to a fine-grained perspective similarly across age groups. However, unexpectedly, six-year-olds also display greater overall sensitivity to orientation, preferring the vertical over the horizontal caused posture expression. Despite early flexibility, the factors governing the patterns of perspective-taking on events are undergoing change even in later childhood, reminiscent of U-shaped semantic reorganizations observed in children's lexical knowledge. The present study points to the intriguing possibility that mechanisms that operate at the level of semantics could also influence subtle patterns of lexical choice and perspective-shifts.

Abstract

Specific language impairment (SLI) is defined as an unexpected and persistent impairment in language ability despite adequate opportunity and intelligence and in the absence of any explanatory medical conditions. This condition is highly heritable and affects between 5% and 8% of pre-school children. Over the past few years, investigations have begun to uncover genetic factors that may contribute to susceptibility to language impairment. So far, variants in four specific genes have been associated with spoken language disorders - forkhead box P2 (FOXP2) and contactin-associated protein-like 2 (CNTNAP2) on chromosome7 and calcium-transporting ATPase 2C2 (ATP2C2) and c-MAF inducing protein (CMIP) on chromosome 16. Here, we describe the different ways in which these genes were identified as candidates for language impairment. We discuss how characterization of these genes, and the pathways in which they are involved, may enhance our understanding of language disorders and improve our understanding of the biological foundations of language acquisition.

Abstract

In linguistic theories of how sentences encode meaning, a distinction is often made between the context-free rule-based combination of lexical–semantic features of the words within a sentence (‘‘semantics’’), and the contributions made by wider context (‘‘pragmatics’’). In psycholinguistics, this distinction has led to the view that listeners initially compute a local, context-independent meaning of a phrase or sentence before relating it to the wider context. An important aspect of such a two-step perspective on interpretation is that local semantics cannot initially be overruled by global contextual factors. In two spoken-language event-related potential experiments, we tested the viability of this claim by examining whether discourse context can overrule the impact of the core lexical–semantic feature animacy, considered to be an innate organizing principle of cognition. Two-step models of interpretation predict that verb–object animacy violations, as in ‘‘The girl comforted the clock,’’ will always perturb the unfolding interpretation process, regardless of wider context. When presented in isolation, such anomalies indeed elicit a clear N400 effect, a sign of interpretive problems. However, when the anomalies were embedded in a supportive context (e.g., a girl talking to a clock about his depression), this N400 effect disappeared completely. Moreover, given a suitable discourse context (e.g., a story about an amorous peanut), animacyviolating predicates (‘‘the peanut was in love’’) were actually processed more easily than canonical predicates (‘‘the peanut was salted’’). Our findings reveal that discourse context can immediately overrule local lexical–semantic violations, and therefore suggest that language comprehension does not involve an initially context-free semantic analysis.

Abstract

Although we usually have no trouble finding the right antecedent for a pronoun, the co-reference relations between pronouns and antecedents in everyday language are often ‘formally’ ambiguous. But a pronoun is only really ambiguous if a reader or listener indeed perceives it to be ambiguous. Whether this is the case may depend on at least two factors: the language processing skills of an individual reader, and the contextual bias towards one particular referential interpretation. In the current study, we used event related brain potentials (ERPs) to explore how both these factors affect the resolution of referentially ambiguous pronouns. We compared ERPs elicited by formally ambiguous and non-ambiguous pronouns that were embedded in simple sentences (e.g., “Jennifer Lopez told Madonna that she had too much money.”). Individual differences in language processing skills were assessed with the Reading Span task, while the contextual bias of each sentence (up to the critical pronoun) had been assessed in a referential cloze pretest. In line with earlier research, ambiguous pronouns elicited a sustained, frontal negative shift relative to non-ambiguous pronouns at the group-level. The size of this effect was correlated with Reading Span score, as well as with contextual bias. These results suggest that whether a reader perceives a formally ambiguous pronoun to be ambiguous is subtly co-determined by both individual language processing skills and contextual bias.

Abstract

In two event-related potential (ERP) experiments, we determined to what extent Grice’s maxim of informativeness as well as pragmatic ability contributes to the incremental build-up of sentence meaning, by examining the impact of underinformative versus informative scalar statements (e.g. “Some people have lungs/pets, and…”) on the N400 event-related potential (ERP), an electrophysiological index of semantic processing. In Experiment 1, only pragmatically skilled participants (as indexed by the Autism Quotient Communication subscale) showed a larger N400 to underinformative statements. In Experiment 2, this effect disappeared when the critical words were unfocused so that the local underinformativeness went unnoticed (e.g., “Some people have lungs that…”). Our results suggest that, while pragmatic scalar meaning can incrementally contribute to sentence comprehension, this contribution is dependent on contextual factors, whether these are derived from individual pragmatic abilities or the overall experimental context.

Abstract

The present study investigated L1 transfer effects in L2 sentence processing and syntactic priming through comprehension in speakers of German and Italian. L1 and L2 speakers of both languages participated in a syntactic priming experiment that aimed to shift their preferred interpretation of ambiguous relative clause constructions. The results suggested that L1 transfer affects L2 processing but not the strength of structural priming, and therefore does not hinder the acquisition of L2 parsing strategies. We also report evidence that structural priming through comprehension can persist in L1 and L2 speakers over an experimental phase without further exposure to primes. Finally, we observed that priming can occur for what are essentially novel form-meaning pairings for L2 learners, suggesting that adult learners can rapidly associate existing forms with new meanings.

Abstract

Observations of alarm calling behavior in putty-nosed monkeys are suggestive of a link with human language evolution. However, as is often the case in studies of animal behavior and cognition, competing theories are underdetermined by the available data. We argue that computational modeling, and in particular the use of individual-based simulations, is an effective way to reduce the size of the pool of candidate explanations. Simulation achieves this both through the classification of evolutionary trajectories as either plausible or implausible, and by putting lower bounds on the cognitive complexity required to perform particular behaviors. A case is made for using both of these strategies to understand the extent to which the alarm calls of putty-nosed monkeys are likely to be a good model for human language evolution.

Abstract

We know a great deal about the neurophysiological mechanisms supporting instrumental actions, i.e. actions designed to alter the physical state of the environment. In contrast, little is known about our ability to select communicative actions, i.e. actions directly designed to modify the mental state of another agent. We have recently provided novel empirical evidence for a mechanism in which a communicator selects his actions on the basis of a prediction of the communicative intentions that an addressee is most likely to attribute to those actions. The main novelty of those finding was that this prediction of intention recognition is cerebrally implemented within the intention recognition system of the communicator, is modulated by the ambiguity in meaning of the communicative acts, and not by their sensorimotor complexity. The characteristics of this predictive mechanism support the notion that human communicative abilities are distinct from both sensorimotor and linguistic processes.

Abstract

We propose that speech comprehension involves the activation of token representations of the phonological forms of current lexical hypotheses, separately from the ongoing construction of a conceptual interpretation of the current utterance. In a series of cross-modal priming experiments, facilitation of lexical decision responses to visual target words (e.g., time) was found for targets that were semantic associates of auditory prime words (e.g., date) when the primes were isolated words, but not when the same primes appeared in sentence contexts. Identity priming (e.g., faster lexical decisions to visual date after spoken date than after an unrelated prime) appeared, however, both with isolated primes and with primes in prosodically neutral sentences. Associative priming in sentence contexts only emerged when sentence prosody involved contrastive accents, or when sentences were terminated immediately after the prime. Associative priming is therefore not an automatic consequence of speech processing. In no experiment was there associative priming from embedded words (e.g., sedate-time), but there was inhibitory identity priming (e.g., sedate-date) from embedded primes in sentence contexts. Speech comprehension therefore appears to involve separate distinct activation both of token phonological word representations and of conceptual word representations. Furthermore, both of these types of representation are distinct from the long-term memory representations of word form and meaning.

Abstract

Participants made visual lexical decisions to upper-case words and nonwords, and then categorized an ambiguous N–H letter continuum. The lexical decision phase included different exposure conditions: Some participants saw an ambiguous letter “?”, midway between N and H, in N-biased lexical contexts (e.g., REIG?), plus words with unambiguousH(e.g., WEIGH); others saw the reverse (e.g., WEIG?, REIGN). The first group categorized more of the test continuum as N than did the second group. Control groups, who saw “?” in nonword contexts (e.g., SMIG?), plus either of the unambiguous word sets (e.g., WEIGH or REIGN), showed no such subsequent effects. Perceptual learning about ambiguous letters therefore appears to be based on lexical knowledge, just as in an analogous speech experiment (Norris, McQueen, & Cutler, 2003) which showed similar lexical influence in learning about ambiguous phonemes. We argue that lexically guided learning is an efficient general strategy available for exploitation by different specific perceptual tasks.

Abstract

Signed languages are articulated through simultaneous upper-body movements and are seen; spoken languages are articulated through sequential vocal-tract movements and are heard. But word recognition in both language modalities entails segmentation of a continuous input into discrete lexical units. According to the Possible Word Constraint (PWC), listeners segment speech so as to avoid impossible words in the input. We argue here that the PWC is a modality-general principle. Deaf signers of British Sign Language (BSL) spotted real BSL signs embedded in nonsense-sign contexts more easily when the nonsense signs were possible BSL signs than when they were not. A control experiment showed that there were no articulatory differences between the different contexts. A second control experiment on segmentation in spoken Dutch strengthened the claim that the main BSL result likely reflects the operation of a lexical-viability constraint. It appears that signed and spoken languages, in spite of radical input differences, are segmented so as to leave no residues of the input that cannot be words.

Abstract

Research has documented systematic articulation differences in young children’s first signs compared with the adult input. Explanations range from the implementation of phonological processes, cognitive limitations and motor immaturity. One way of disentangling these possible explanations is to investigate signing articulation in adults who do not know any sign language but have mature cognitive and motor development. Some preliminary observations are provided on signing accuracy in a group of adults using a sign repetition methodology. Adults make the most errors with marked handshapes and produce movement and location errors akin to those reported for child signers. Secondly, there are both positive and negative influences of sign iconicity on sign repetition in adults. Possible reasons are discussed for these iconicity effects based on gesture.

Abstract

This dissertation documents the emergence of a new language, Light Warlpiri, in the multilingual community of Lajamanu in northern Australia. It then examines the acquisition of Light Warlpiri language, and of the heritage language, Lajamanu Warlpiri, by children. Light Warlpiri has arisen from contact between Lajamanu Warlpiri (a Pama-Nyungan language), Kriol (an English-based creole), and varieties of English. It is a Mixed Language, meaning that none of its source languages can be considered to be the sole parent language. Most verbs and the verbal morphology are from Aboriginal English or Kriol, while most nouns and the nominal morphology are from Warlpiri. The language input to children is complex. Adults older than about thirty speak Lajamanu Warlpiri and code-switch into Aboriginal English or Kriol. Younger adults, the parents of the current cohort of children, speak Light Warlpiri and code-switch into Lajamanu Warlpiri and into Aboriginal English or Kriol. Lajamanu Warlpiri and Light Warlpiri, the two main input languages to children, both indicate A arguments with ergative case-marking (and they share one allomorph of the marker), but Lajamanu Warlpiri includes the marker much more consistently than Light Warlpiri. Word order is variable in both languages. Children learn both languages from birth, but they target Light Warlpiri as the language of their everyday interactions, and they speak it almost exclusively until four to six years of age. Adults and children show similar patterns of ergative marking and word order in Light Warlpiri. But differences between age groups are found in ergative marking in Lajamanu Warlpiri - for the oldest group of adults, ergative marking is obligatory, but for younger adults and children, it is not. Determining when children differentiate between two input languages has been a major goal in the study of bilingual acquisition. The two languages in this study share lexical and grammatical properties, making distinctions between them quite subtle. Both adults and children distribute ergative marking differently in the two languages, but show similar word order patterns in both. However the children show a stronger correlation between ergative marking and word order patterns than do the adults, suggesting that they are spearheading processes of language change. In their comprehension of sentences in both Lajamanu Warlpiri and Light Warlpiri, adults use a case-marking strategy to identify the A argument (i.e. N+erg = A argument, N-erg = O argument). The children are not adult-like in using this strategy at age 5, when they also used a word order strategy, but they gradually move towards being adult-like with increased age.

Abstract

Japanese listeners detected Japanese words embedded at the end of nonsense sequences (e.g., kaba 'hippopotamus' in gyachikaba). When the final portion of the preceding context together with the initial portion of the word (e.g., here, the sequence chika) was compatible with many lexical competitors, recognition of the embedded word was more difficult than when such a sequence was compatible with few competitors. This clear effect of competition, established here for preceding context in Japanese, joins similar demonstrations, in other languages and for following contexts, to underline that the functional architecture of the human spoken-word recognition system is a universal one.

Abstract

Locative expressions encode the spatial relationship between two (or more) entities. In this paper, we focus on locative expressions in signed language, which use the visual-spatial modality for linguistic expression, specifically in
Turkish Sign Language ( Türk İşaret Dili, henceforth TİD). We show that TİD uses various strategies in discourse to encode the relation between a Ground entity (i.e., a bigger and/or backgrounded entity) and a Figure entity (i.e., a
smaller entity, which is in the focus of attention). Some of these strategies exploit affordances of the visual modality for analogue representation and support evidence for modality-specific effects on locative expressions in sign languages.
However, other modality-specific strategies, e.g., the simultaneous expression of Figure and Ground, which have been reported for many other sign languages, occurs only sparsely in TİD. Furthermore, TİD uses categorical as well as analogical structures in locative expressions. On the basis of
these findings, we discuss differences and similarities between signed and spoken languages to broaden our understanding of the range of structures used in natural language (i.e., in both the visual-spatial or oral-aural modalities) to encode locative relations. A general linguistic theory of spatial relations, and specifically of locative expressions, must take all structures that
might arise in both modalities into account before it can generalize over the human language faculty.

Abstract

In this paper we try to contribute to the body of knowledge about the acquisition of English epistemic modal verbs (e.g. Mary may/has to be at school). Semantically, these verbs encode possibility or necessity with respect to available evidence. Pragmatically, the use of epistemic modals often gives rise to scalar conversational inferences (Mary may be at school -> Mary doesn’t have to be at school). The acquisition of epistemic modals is challenging for children on both these levels. In this paper, we present findings from two studies which were conducted with 5-year-old children and adults. Our findings, unlike previous work, show that 5-yr-olds have mastered epistemic modal semantics, including the notions of necessity and possibility. However, they are still in the process of acquiring epistemic modal pragmatics.

Abstract

Dyslexia is one of the most prevalent childhood cognitive disorders, affecting approximately 5% of school-age children. We have recently identified a risk haplotype associated with dyslexia on chromosome 6p22.2 which spans the TTRAP gene and portions of THEM2 and KIAA0319. Here we show that in the presence of the risk haplotype, the expression of the KIAA0319 gene is reduced but the expression of the other two genes remains unaffected. Using in situ hybridization, we detect a very distinct expression pattern of the KIAA0319 gene in the developing cerebral neocortex of mouse and human fetuses. Moreover, interference with rat Kiaa0319 expression in utero leads to impaired neuronal migration in the developing cerebral neocortex. These data suggest a direct link between a specific genetic background and a biological mechanism leading to the development of dyslexia: the risk haplotype on chromosome 6p22.2 down-regulates the KIAA0319 gene which is required for neuronal migration during the formation of the cerebral neocortex.

Abstract

The relationship between synchronous neuronal activity as measured with EEG and the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal as measured during fMRI is not clear. This work investigates the relationship by combining EEG and fMRI measures of the strong increase in beta frequency power following movement, the so-called post-movement beta rebound (PMBR). The time course of the PMBR, as measured by EEG, was included as a regressor in the fMRI analysis, allowing identification of a region of associated BOLD signal increase in the sensorimotor cortex, with the most significant region in the post-central sulcus. The increase in the BOLD signal suggests that the number of active neurons and/or their synaptic rate is increased during the PMBR. The duration of the BOLD response curve in the PMBR region is significantly longer than in the activated motor region, and is well fitted by a model including both motor and PMBR regressors. An intersubject correlation between the BOLD signal amplitude associated with the PMBR regressor and the PMBR strength as measured with EEG provides further evidence that this region is a source of the PMBR. There is a strong intra-subject correlation between the BOLD signal amplitude in the sensorimotor cortex during movement and the PMBR strength as measured by EEG, suggesting either that the motor activity itself, or somatosensory inputs associated with the motor activity, influence the PMBR. This work provides further evidence for a BOLD signal change associated with changes in neuronal synchrony, so opening up the possibility of studying other event-related oscillatory changes using fMRI.

Abstract

En este artículo se desarrolla un método automático de segmentación de fonemas no supervisado. Este método utiliza el algoritmo de agrupación de máximo margen [1] para realizar segmentación de fonemas sobre habla continua sin necesidad de información a priori para el entrenamiento del sistema.

Abstract

Current views about language are dominated by the idea of arbitrary connections between linguistic form and meaning. However, if we look beyond the more familiar Indo-European languages and also include both spoken and signed language modalities, we find that motivated, iconic form-meaning mappings are, in fact, pervasive in language. In this paper, we review the different types of iconic mappings that characterize languages in both modalities, including the predominantly visually iconic mappings in signed languages. Having shown that iconic mapping are present across languages, we then proceed to review evidence showing that language users (signers and speakers) exploit iconicity in language processing and language acquisition. While not discounting the presence and importance of arbitrariness in language, we put forward the idea that iconicity need also be recognized as a general property of language, which may serve the function of reducing the gap between linguistic form and conceptual representation to allow the language system to “hook up” to motor and perceptual experience.

Abstract

Literacy and education represent essential aspects of contemporary society and subserve important aspects of socialization and cultural transmission. The study of illiterate subjects represents one approach to investigate the interactions between neurobiological and cultural factors in cognitive development, individual learning, and their influence on the functional organization of the brain. In this chapter we review some recent cognitive, neuroanatomic, and functional neuroimaging results indicating that formal education influences important aspects of the human brain. Taken together this provides strong support for the idea that the brain is modulated by literacy and formal education, which in turn change the brains capacity to interact with its environment, including the individual's contemporary culture. In other words, the individual is able to participate in, interact with, and actively contribute to the process of cultural transmission in new ways through acquired cognitive skills.

Abstract

The irrelevant speech effect illustrates that sounds that are irrelevant to a visually presented short-term memory task still interfere with neuronal function. In the present study we explore the functional and effective connectivity of such interference. The functional connectivity analysis suggested an interaction between the level of irrelevant speech and the correlation between in particular the left superior temporal region, associated with verbal working memory, and the left medial temporal lobe. Based on this psycho-physiological interaction, and to broaden the understanding of this result, we performed a network analysis, using a simple network model for verbal working memory, to analyze its interaction with the medial temporal lobe memory system. The results showed dissociations in terms of network interactions between frontal as well as parietal and temporal areas in relation to the medial temporal lobe. The results of the present study suggest that a transition from phonological loop processing towards an engagement of episodic processing might take place during the processing of interfering irrelevant sounds. We speculate that, in response to the irrelevant sounds, this reflects a dynamic shift in processing as suggested by a closer interaction between a verbal working memory system and the medial temporal lobe memory system.

Abstract

ehavioral studies have suggested that placebo analgesia is partly mediated by the endogenous opioid system. Expanding on these results we have shown that the opioid-receptor-rich rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) is activated in both placebo and opioid analgesia. However, there are also differences between the two treatments. While opioids have direct pharmacological effects, acting on the descending pain inhibitory system, placebo analgesia depends on neocortical top-down mechanisms. An important difference may be that expectations are met to a lesser extent in placebo treatment as compared with a specific treatment, yielding a larger error signal. As these processes previously have been shown to influence other types of perceptual experiences, we hypothesized that they also may drive placebo analgesia. Imaging studies suggest that lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lObfc) and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) are involved in processing expectation and error signals. We re-analyzed two independent functional imaging experiments related to placebo analgesia and emotional placebo to probe for a differential processing in these regions during placebo treatment vs. opioid treatment and to test if this activity is associated with the placebo response. In the first dataset lObfc and vlPFC showed an enhanced activation in placebo analgesia vs. opioid analgesia. Furthermore, the rACC activity co-varied with the prefrontal regions in the placebo condition specifically. A similar correlation between rACC and vlPFC was reproduced in another dataset involving emotional placebo and correlated with the degree of the placebo effect. Our results thus support that placebo is different from specific treatment with a prefrontal top-down influence on rACC.

Abstract

Doubts have been cast on the strict dissociation between short- and long-term memory systems. Specifically, several neuroimaging studies have shown that the medial temporal lobe, a region almost invariably associated with long-term memory, is involved in active short-term memory maintenance. Furthermore, a recent study in hippocampally lesioned patients has shown that the hippocampus is critically involved in associating objects and their locations, even when the delay period lasts only 8 s. However, the critical feature that causes the medial temporal lobe, and in particular the hippocampus, to participate in active maintenance is still unknown. This study was designed in order to explore hippocampal involvement in active maintenance of spatial and non-spatial associations. Eighteen participants performed a delayed-match-to-sample task in which they had to maintain either object–location associations, color–number association, single colors, or single locations. Whole-brain activity was measured using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging and analyzed using a random effects model. Right lateralized hippocampal activity was evident when participants had to maintain object–location associations, but not when they had to maintain object–color associations or single items. The present results suggest a hippocampal involvement in active maintenance when feature combinations that include spatial information have to be maintained online.

Abstract

Several studies have demonstrated that people with ASD and intact language skills still have problems processing linguistic information in context. Given this evidence for reduced sensitivity to linguistic context, the question arises how contextual information is actually processed by people with ASD. In this study, we used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to examine context sensitivity in high-functioning adults with autistic disorder (HFA) and Asperger syndrome at two levels: at the level of sentence processing and at the level of solving reasoning problems. We found that sentence context as well as reasoning context had an immediate ERP effect in adults with Asperger syndrome, as in matched controls. Both groups showed a typical N400 effect and a late positive component for the sentence conditions, and a sustained negativity for the reasoning conditions. In contrast, the HFA group demonstrated neither an N400 effect nor a sustained negativity. However, the HFA group showed a late positive component which was larger for semantically anomalous sentences than congruent sentences. Because sentence context had a modulating effect in a later phase, semantic integration is perhaps less automatic in HFA, and presumably more elaborate processes are needed to arrive at a sentence interpretation.

Abstract

Tooth development is a highly heritable process which relates to other growth and developmental processes, and which interacts with the development of the entire craniofacial complex. Abnormalities of tooth development are common, with tooth agenesis being the most common developmental anomaly in humans. We performed a genome-wide association study of time to first tooth eruption and number of teeth at one year in 4,564 individuals from the 1966 Northern Finland Birth Cohort (NFBC1966) and 1,518 individuals from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). We identified 5 loci at P<}5x10(-8), and 5 with suggestive association (P{<5x10(-6)). The loci included several genes with links to tooth and other organ development (KCNJ2, EDA, HOXB2, RAD51L1, IGF2BP1, HMGA2, MSRB3). Genes at four of the identified loci are implicated in the development of cancer. A variant within the HOXB gene cluster associated with occlusion defects requiring orthodontic treatment by age 31 years.

Abstract

This study investigates whether the acoustic durations of derivational affixes in Dutch are affected by the frequency of the word they occur in. In a word naming experiment, subjects were presented with a large number of words containing one of the affixes ge-, ver-, ont, or -lijk. Their responses were recorded on DAT tapes, and the durations of the affixes were measured using Automatic Speech Recognition technology. To investigate whether frequency also affected durations when speech rate was high, the presentation rate of the stimuli was varied. The results show that a higher frequency of the word as a whole led to shorter acoustic realizations for all affixes. Furthermore, affixes became shorter as the presentation rate of the stimuli increased. There was no interaction between word frequency and presentation rate, suggesting that the frequency effect also applies in situations in which the speed of articulation is very high.

Abstract

Objective: Recent genome-wide analysis identified a genetic variant on 5p14.1 (rs4307059), which is associated with risk for autism spectrum disorder. This study investigated whether rs4307059 also operates as a quantitative trait locus underlying a broader autism phenotype in the general population, focusing specifically on the social communication aspect of the spectrum. Method: Study participants were 7,313 children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Single-trait and joint-trait genotype associations were investigated for 29 measures related to language and communication, verbal intelligence, social interaction, and behavioral adjustment, assessed between ages 3 and 12 years. Analyses were performed in one-sided or directed mode and adjusted for multiple testing, trait interrelatedness, and random genotype dropout. Results: Single phenotype analyses showed that an increased load of rs4307059 risk allele is associated with stereotyped conversation and lower pragmatic communication skills, as measured by the Children's Communication Checklist (at a mean age of 9.7 years). In addition a trend toward a higher frequency of identification of special educational needs (at a mean age of 11.8 years) was observed. Variation at rs4307059 was also associated with the phenotypic profile of studied traits. This joint signal was fully explained neither by single-trait associations nor by overall behavioral adjustment problems but suggested a combined effect, which manifested through multiple sub-threshold social, communicative, and cognitive impairments. Conclusions: Our results suggest that common variation at 5p14.1 is associated with social communication spectrum phenotypes in the general population and support the role of rs4307059 as a quantitative trait locus for autism spectrum disorder.

Abstract

Greek is a language with lexical stress that marks stress orthographically with a special diacritic. Thus, the orthography and the lexicon constitute potential sources of stress assignment information in addition to any possible general default metrical pattern. Here, we report two experiments with secondary education children reading aloud pseudo-word stimuli, in which we manipulated the availability of lexical (using stimuli resembling particular words) and visual (existence and placement of the diacritic) information. The reliance on the diacritic was found to be imperfect. Strong lexical effects as well as a default metrical pattern stressing the penultimate syllable were revealed. Reading models must be extended to account for multisyllabic word reading including, in particular, stress assignment based on the interplay among multiple possible sources of information.

Abstract

For the beginning language learner, communicative input is not based on linguistic codes alone. This study investigated two extralinguistic factors which are important for infants’ language development: the type of ongoing shared activity and non-verbal, deictic gestures. The natural interactions of 39 caregivers and their 12-month-old infants were recorded in two semi-natural contexts: a free play situation based on action and manipulation of objects, and a situation based on regard of objects, broadly analogous to an exhibit. Results show that the type of shared activity structures both caregivers’ language usage and caregivers’ and infants’ gesture usage. Further, there is a specific pattern with regard to how caregivers integrate speech with particular deictic gesture types. The findings demonstrate a pervasive influence of shared activities on human communication, even before language has emerged. The type of shared activity and caregivers’ systematic integration of specific forms of deictic gestures with language provide infants with a multimodal scaffold for a usage-based acquisition of language.

Abstract

A visual world eye-tracking study investigated the activation and persistence of implicit causality information in spoken language comprehension. We showed that people infer the implicit causality of verbs as soon as they encounter such verbs in discourse, as is predicted by proponents of the immediate focusing account (Greene & McKoon, 1995; Koornneef & Van Berkum, 2006; Van Berkum, Koornneef, Otten, & Nieuwland, 2007). Interestingly, we observed activation of implicit causality information even before people encountered the causal conjunction. However, while implicit causality information was persistent as the discourse unfolded, it did not have a privileged role as a focusing cue immediately at the ambiguous pronoun when people were resolving its antecedent. Instead, our study indicated that implicit causality does not affect all referents to the same extent, rather it interacts with other cues in the discourse, especially when one of the referents is already prominently in focus.

Abstract

Recent evidence from adult pronoun comprehension suggests that semantic factors such as verb transitivity affect referent salience and thereby anaphora resolution. We tested whether the same semantic factors influence pronoun comprehension in young children. In a visual world study, 3-year-olds heard stories that began with a sentence containing either a high or a low transitivity verb. Looking behaviour to pictures depicting the subject and object of this sentence was recorded as children listened to a subsequent sentence containing a pronoun. Children showed a stronger preference to look to the subject as opposed to the object antecedent in the low transitivity condition. In addition there were general preferences (1) to look to the subject in both conditions and (2) to look more at both potential antecedents in the high transitivity condition. This suggests that children, like adults, are affected by semantic factors, specifically semantic prominence, when interpreting anaphoric pronouns.

Abstract

This paper explores the semantics of the dative in Tashelhiyt, a Berber language from Morocco. After a brief morphosyntactic overview of the dative in this language, I identify a wide range of its semantic roles, including possessor, experiencer, distributive and unintending causer. I arrange these roles in a semantic map and propose semantic links between the roles such as metaphorisation and generalisation. In the light of the Tashelhiyt data, the paper also proposes additions to previous semantic maps of the dative (Haspelmath 1999, 2003) and to Kittilä’s 2005 typology of beneficiary coding.

Abstract

This paper offers some thoughts on the question what effect language has on the understanding and hence behavior of a human being. It reviews some issues of linguistic relativity, known as the “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,” suggesting that the culture we grow up in is reflected in the language and that our cognition (and our worldview) is shaped or colored by the conventions developed by our ancestors and peers. This raises questions for the degree of translatability, illustrated by the comparison of two poems by a Dutch poet who spent most of his life in the USA. Mutual understanding, I claim, is possible because we have the cognitive apparatus that allows us to enter different emic systems.

Abstract

For optimal word recognition listeners should use all relevant acoustic information as soon as it comes available. Using printed-word eye-tracking we investigated when during word processing Dutch listeners use suprasegmental lexical stress information to recognize words. Fixations on targets such as 'OCtopus' (capitals indicate stress) were more frequent than fixations on segmentally overlapping but differently stressed competitors ('okTOber') before segmental information could disambiguate the words. Furthermore, prior to segmental disambiguation, initially stressed words were stronger lexical competitors than non-initially stressed words. Listeners recognize words by immediately using all relevant information in the speech signal.

Abstract

To understand spoken words listeners have to cope with seemingly meaningless variability in the speech signal. Speakers vary, for example, their tone of voice (ToV) by changing speaking rate, pitch, vocal effort, and loudness. This variation is independent of "linguistic prosody" such as sentence intonation or speech rhythm. The variation due to ToV, however, is not random. Speakers use, for example, higher pitch when referring to small objects than when referring to large objects and importantly, adult listeners are able to use these non-lexical ToV cues to distinguish between the meanings of antonym pairs (e.g., big-small; Nygaard, Herold, & Namy, 2009). In the present study, we asked whether listeners infer the meaning of novel adjectives from ToV and subsequently interpret these adjectives according to the learned meaning even in the absence of ToV. Moreover, if listeners actually acquire these adjectival meanings, then they should generalize these word meanings to novel referents. ToV would thus be a semantic cue to lexical acquisition. This hypothesis was tested in an exposure-test paradigm with adult listeners. In the experiment listeners' eye movements to picture pairs were monitored. The picture pairs represented the endpoints of the adjectival dimensions big-small, hot-cold, and strong-weak (e.g., an elephant and an ant represented big-small). Four picture pairs per category were used. While viewing the pictures participants listened to lexically unconstraining sentences containing novel adjectives, for example, "Can you find the foppick one?" During exposure, the sentences were spoken in infant-directed speech with the intended adjectival meaning expressed by ToV. Word-meaning pairings were counterbalanced across participants. Each word was repeated eight times. Listeners had no explicit task. To guide listeners' attention to the relation between the words and pictures, three sets of filler trials were included that contained real English adjectives (e.g., full-empty). In the subsequent test phase participants heard the novel adjectives in neutral adult-directed ToV. Test sentences were recorded before the speaker was informed about intended word meanings. Participants had to choose which of two pictures on the screen the speaker referred to. Picture pairs that were presented during the exposure phase and four new picture pairs per category that varied along the critical dimensions were tested. During exposure listeners did not spontaneously direct their gaze to the intended referent at the first presentation. But as indicated by listener's fixation behavior, they quickly learned the relationship between ToV and word meaning over only two exposures. Importantly, during test participants consistently identified the intended referent object even in the absence of informative ToV. Learning was found for all three tested categories and did not depend on whether the picture pairs had been presented during exposure. Listeners thus use ToV not only to distinguish between antonym pairs but they are able to extract word meaning from ToV and assign this meaning to novel words. The newly learned word meanings can then be generalized to novel referents even in the absence of ToV cues. These findings suggest that ToV can be used as a semantic cue to lexical acquisition. References Nygaard, L. C., Herold, D. S., & Namy, L. L. (2009) The semantics of prosody: Acoustic and perceptual evidence of prosodic correlates to word meaning. Cognitive Science, 33. 127-146.

Abstract

Previous work has shown that illiterate subjects are better at naming two-dimensional representations of real objects when presented as colored photos as compared to black and white drawings. This raises the question if color or textural details selectively improve object recognition and naming in illiterate compared to literate subjects. In this study, we investigated whether the surface texture and/or color of objects is used to access stored object knowledge in illiterate subjects. A group of illiterate subjects and a matched literate control group were compared on an immediate object naming task with four conditions: color and black and white (i.e., grey-scaled) photos, as well as color and black and white (i.e., grey-scaled) drawings of common everyday objects. The results show that illiterate subjects perform significantly better when the stimuli are colored and this effect is independent of the photographic detail. In addition, there were significant differences between the literacy groups in the black and white condition for both drawings and photos. These results suggest that color object information contributes to object recognition. This effect was particularly prominent in the illiterate group

Abstract

A aquisição da leitura decorre ao longo de diversas etapas, desde o momento em que a criança inicia o contacto com o alfabeto até ao momento em que se torna um leitor competente, apto a ler correcta e fluentemente. Compreender a evolução desta competência através de uma análise da diferenciação do peso de variáveis preditoras da leitura possibilita teorizar sobre os mecanismos cognitivos envolvidos nas diferentes fases de desenvolvimento da leitura. Realizámos um estudo transversal com 568 alunos do segundo ao quarto ano do primeiro ciclo do Ensino Básico, em que se avaliou o impacto de capacidades de processamento fonológico, nomeação rápida, conhecimento letra-som e vocabulário, bem como de capacidades cognitivas mais gerais (inteligência não-verbal e memória de trabalho), na exactidão e velocidade da leitura. De uma forma geral, os resultados mostraram que, apesar da consciência fonológica permanecer como o preditor mais importante da exactidão e fluência da leitura, o seu peso decresce à medida que a escolaridade aumenta. Observou-se também que, à medida que o contributo da consciência fonológica para a explicação da velocidade de leitura diminuía, aumentava o contributo de outras variáveis mais associadas ao automatismo e reconhecimento lexical, tais como a nomeação rápida e o vocabulário. Em suma, podemos dizer que ao longo da escolaridade se observa uma alteração dinâmica dos processos cognitivos subjacentes à leitura, o que sugere que a criança evolui de uma estratégia de leitura ancorada em processamentos sub-lexicais, e como tal mais dependente de processamentos fonológicos, para uma estratégia baseada no reconhecimento ortográfico das palavras.

Abstract

A case of a word/letter dissociation is described. The present patient has a quasi-normal word reading performance (both at the level of speed and accuracy) while he has major problems in nonword and letter reading. More specifically, he has strong difficulties in retrieving letter names but preserved abilities in letter identification. This study complements previous cases reporting a similar word/letter dissociation by focusing more specifically on word reading and letter naming latencies. The results provide new constraints for modeling the role of letter knowledge within reading processes and during reading acquisition or rehabilitation.

Abstract

The Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Psycholinguistics has developed a service to manage and present the scholarly output of their researchers. The PubMan database manages publication metadata and full-texts of publications published by their scholars. All relevant information regarding a researcher’s work is brought together in this database, including supplementary materials and links to the MPI database for primary research data. The PubMan metadata is harvested into the MPI website CMS (Plone). The system developed for the creation of the publication lists, allows the researcher to create a selection of the harvested data in a variety of formats.

Abstract

The MPI archive hosts a rich and diverse set of linguistic resources, containing some 300.000 audio, video and text resources, which are described by some 100.000 metadata files. New data is ingested on a daily basis, and there is an increasing need to facilitate easy access to both expert and novice users. In this paper, we describe various tools that help users to view all archived content: the IMDI Browser, providing metadata-based access through structured tree navigation and search; a facetted browser where users select from a few distinctive metadata fields (facets) to find the resource(s) in need; a Google Earth overlay where resources can be located via geographic reference; purpose-built web portals giving pre-fabricated access to a well-defined part of the archive; lexicon-based entry points to parts of the archive where browsing a lexicon gives access to non-linguistic material; and finally, an ontology-based approach where lexical spaces are complemented with conceptual ones to give a more structured extra-linguistic view of the languages and cultures its helps documenting.

Abstract

This technology review gives an overview of LEXUS, the MPI online lexicon tool and its new functionalities. It is a reaction to a review of Kristina Kotcheva in Language Documentation and Conservation 3(2).

Abstract

The annual conference of the European Second Language Association provides an opportunity for the presentation of second language research with a genuinely European flavour. The theoretical perspectives adopted are wide-ranging and may fall within traditions overlooked elsewhere. Moreover, the studies presented are largely multi-lingual and cross-cultural, as befits the make-up of modern-day Europe. At the same time, the work demonstrates sophisticated awareness of scholarly insights from around the world. The EUROSLA yearbook presents a selection each year of the very best research from the annual conference. Submissions are reviewed and professionally edited, and only those of the highest quality are selected. Contributions are in English.

Abstract

The acquisition of second language (L2) syntax has been central to the study of L2 acquisition, but recently there has been an interest in how learners apply their L2 syntactic knowledge to the input in real-time comprehension. Investigating L2 learners’ moment-by-moment syntactic analysis during listening or reading of sentence as it unfolds — their parsing of the input — is important, because language learning involves both the acquisition of knowledge and the ability to use it in real time. Using methods employed in monolingual processing research, investigations often focus on the processing of temporary syntactic ambiguities and structural dependencies. Investigating ambiguities involves examining parsing decisions at points in a sentence where there is a syntactic choice and this can offer insights into the nature of the parsing mechanism, and in particular, its processing preferences. Studying the establishment of syntactic dependencies at the critical point in the input allows for an investigation of how and when different kinds of information (e.g., syntactic, semantic, pragmatic) are put to use in real-time interpretation. Within an L2 context, further questions are of interest and familiar from traditional L2 acquisition research. Specifically, how native-like are the parsing procedures that L2 learners apply when processing the L2 input? What is the role of the learner’s first language (L1)? And, what are the effects of individual factors such as age, proficiency/dominance and working memory on L2 parsing? In the current paper I will provide an overview of the findings of some experimental research designed to investigate these questions.

Abstract

Rotokas is famous for possessing one of the world’s smallest phoneme inventories. According to one source, the Central dialect of Rotokas possesses only 11 segmental phonemes (five vowels and six consonants) and lacks nasals while the Aita dialect possesses a similar-sized inventory in which nasals replace voiced stops. However, recent fieldwork reveals that the Aita dialect has, in fact, both voiced and nasal stops, making for an inventory of 14 segmental phonemes (five vowels and nine consonants). The correspondences between Central and Aita Rotokas suggest that the former is innovative with respect to its consonant inventory and the latter conservative, and that the small inventory of Central Rotokas arose by collapsing the distinction between voiced and nasal stops.

Abstract

Does the spelling of a word mandatorily constrain spoken word production, or does it do so only
when spelling is relevant for the production task at hand? Damian and Bowers (2003) reported spelling
effects in spoken word production in English using a prompt–response word generation task. Preparation
of the response words was disrupted when the responses shared initial phonemes that differed
in spelling, suggesting that spelling constrains speech production mandatorily. The present experiments,
conducted in Dutch, tested for spelling effects using word production tasks in which spelling
was clearly relevant (oral reading in Experiment 1) or irrelevant (object naming and word generation
in Experiments 2 and 3, respectively). Response preparation was disrupted by spelling inconsistency
only with the word reading, suggesting that the spelling of a word constrains spoken word production
in Dutch only when it is relevant for the word production task at hand.

Abstract

In five language production experiments it was examined which aspects of words are activated in memory by context pictures and words. Context pictures yielded Stroop-like and semantic effects on response times when participants generated gender-marked noun phrases in response to written words (Experiment 1A). However, pictures yielded no such effects when participants simply read aloud the noun phrases (Experiment 2). Moreover, pictures yielded a gender congruency effect in generating gender-marked noun phrases in response to the written words (Experiments 3A and 3B). These findings suggest that context pictures activate lemmas (i.e., representations of syntactic properties), which leads to effects only when lemmas are needed to generate a response (i.e., in Experiments 1A, 3A, and 3B, but not in Experiment 2). Context words yielded Stroop-like and semantic effects in picture naming (Experiment 1B). Moreover, words yielded Stroop-like but no semantic effects in reading nouns (Experiment 4) and in generating noun phrases (Experiment 5). These findings suggest that context words activate the lemmas and forms of their names, which leads to semantic effects when lemmas are required for responding (Experiment 1B) but not when only the forms are required (Experiment 4). WEAVER++ simulations of the results are presented.

Abstract

Cognitive control includes the ability to formulate goals and plans of action and to follow these while facing distraction. Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that the presence of conflicting response alternatives in Stroop-like tasks increases activity in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), suggesting that the ACC is involved in cognitive control. However, the exact nature of ACC function is still under debate. The prevailing conflict detection hypothesis maintains that the ACC is involved in performance monitoring. According to this view, ACC activity reflects the detection of response conflict and acts as a signal that engages regulative processes subserved by lateral prefrontal brain regions. Here, we provide evidence from functional MRI that challenges this view and favors an alternative view, according to which the ACC has a role in regulation itself. Using an arrow–word Stroop task, subjects responded to incongruent, congruent, and neutral stimuli. A critical prediction made by the conflict detection hypothesis is that ACC activity should be increased only when conflicting response alternatives are present. Our data show that ACC responses are larger for neutral than for congruent stimuli, in the absence of response conflict. This result demonstrates the engagement of the ACC in regulation itself. A computational model of Stroop-like performance instantiating a version of the regulative hypothesis is shown to account for our findings.

Abstract

Five chronometric experiments examined the functional architecture of naming dice, digits, and number words. Speakers named pictured dice, Arabic digits, or written number words, while simultaneously trying to ignore congruent or incongruent dice, digit, or number word distractors presented at various stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). Stroop-like interference and facilitation effects were obtained from digits and words on dice naming latencies, but not from dice on digit and word naming latencies. In contrast, words affected digit naming latencies and digits affected word naming latencies to the same extent. The peak of the interference was always around SOA = 0 ms, whereas facilitation was constant across distractor-first SOAs. These results suggest that digit naming is achieved like word naming rather than dice naming. WEAVER++simulations of the results are reported.

Abstract

Phonological encoding is the process by which speakers retrieve phonemic segments for morphemes from memory and use
the segments to assemble phonological representations of words to be spoken. When conversing in one language, bilingual
speakers have to resist the temptation of encoding word forms using the phonological rules and representations of the other
language. We argue that the activation of phonological representations is not restricted to the target language and that the
phonological representations of languages are not separate. We advance a view of bilingual control in which condition-action
rules determine what is done with the activated phonological information depending on the target language. This view is
computationally implemented in the WEAVER++ model. We present WEAVER++ simulations of the cognate facilitation effect
(Costa, Caramazza and Sebasti´an-Gall´es, 2000) and the between-language phonological facilitation effect of spoken
distractor words in object naming (Hermans, Bongaerts, de Bot and Schreuder, 1998).

Abstract

It is a challenge to identify the molecular networks contributing to the neural basis of human speech. Mutations in transcription factor FOXP2 cause difficulties mastering fluent speech (developmental verbal dyspraxia, DVD), while mutations of sushi-repeat protein SRPX2 lead to epilepsy of the rolandic (sylvian) speech areas, with DVD or with bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria. Pathophysiological mechanisms driven by SRPX2 involve modified interaction with the plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR). Independent chromatin-immunoprecipitation microarray screening has identified the uPAR gene promoter as a potential target site bound by FOXP2. Here, we directly tested for the existence of a transcriptional regulatory network between human FOXP2 and the SRPX2/uPAR complex. In silico searches followed by gel retardation assays identified specific efficient FOXP2 binding sites in each of the promoter regions of SRPX2 and uPAR. In FOXP2-transfected cells, significant decreases were observed in the amounts of both SRPX2 (43.6%) and uPAR (38.6%) native transcripts. Luciferase reporter assays demonstrated that FOXP2 expression yielded marked inhibition of SRPX2 (80.2%) and uPAR (77.5%) promoter activity. A mutant FOXP2 that causes DVD (p.R553H) failed to bind to SRPX2 and uPAR target sites, and showed impaired down-regulation of SRPX2 and uPAR promoter activity. In a patient with polymicrogyria of the left rolandic operculum, a novel FOXP2 mutation (p.M406T) was found in the leucine-zipper (dimerization) domain. p.M406T partially impaired FOXP2 regulation of SRPX2 promoter activity, while that of the uPAR promoter remained unchanged. Together with recently described FOXP2-CNTNPA2 and SRPX2/uPAR links, the FOXP2-SRPX2/uPAR network provides exciting insights into molecular pathways underlying speech-related disorders.

Abstract

Questions are design problems for both the questioner and the addressee. They must be produced as recognizable objects and must be comprehended by taking into account the context in which they occur and the local situated interests of the participants. This paper investigates how people do ‘questioning’ and ‘responding’ in Italian ordinary conversations. I focus on the features of both questions and responses. I first discuss formal linguistic features that are peculiar to questions in terms of intonation contours (e.g. final rise), morphology (e.g. tags and question words) and syntax (e.g. inversion). I then show additional features that characterize their actual implementation in conversation such as their minimality (often the subject or the verb is only implied) and the usual occurrence of speaker gaze towards the recipient during questions. I then look at which social actions (e.g. requests for information, requests for confirmation) the different question types implement and which responses are regularly produced in return. The data shows that previous descriptions of “interrogative markings” are neither adequate nor sufficient to comprehend the actual use of questions in natural conversation.

Abstract

Studies based on naturalistic data are a core tool in the field of language acquisition research and have provided thorough descriptions of children's speech. However, these descriptions are inevitably confounded by differences in the relative frequency with which children use words and language structures. The purpose of the present work was to investigate the impact of sampling constraints on estimates of the productivity of children's utterances, and on the validity of error rates. Comparisons were made between five different sized samples of wh-question data produced by one child aged 2;8. First, we assessed whether sampling constraints undermined the claim (e.g. Tomasello, 2000) that the restricted nature of early child speech reflects a lack of adultlike grammatical knowledge. We demonstrated that small samples were equally likely to under- as overestimate lexical specificity in children's speech, and that the reliability of estimates varies according to sample size. We argued that reliable analyses require a comparison with a control sample, such as that from an adult speaker. Second, we investigated the validity of estimates of error rates based on small samples. The results showed that overall error rates underestimate the incidence of error in some rarely produced parts of the system and that analyses on small samples were likely to substantially over- or underestimate error rates in infrequently produced constructions. We concluded that caution must be used when basing arguments about the scope and nature of errors in children's early multi-word productions on analyses of samples of spontaneous speech.

Abstract

Although cognitive ability is a highly heritable complex trait, only a few genes have been identified, explaining relatively low proportions of the observed trait variation. This implies that hundreds of genes of small effect may be of importance for cognitive ability. We applied an innovative method in which we tested for the effect of groups of genes defined according to cellular function (functional gene group analysis). Using an initial sample of 627 subjects, this functional gene group analysis detected that synaptic heterotrimeric guanine nucleotide binding proteins (G proteins) play an important role in cognitive ability (P(EMP) = 1.9 x 10(-4)). The association with heterotrimeric G proteins was validated in an independent population sample of 1507 subjects. Heterotrimeric G proteins are central relay factors between the activation of plasma membrane receptors by extracellular ligands and the cellular responses that these induce, and they can be considered a point of convergence, or a "signaling bottleneck." Although alterations in synaptic signaling processes may not be the exclusive explanation for the association of heterotrimeric G proteins with cognitive ability, such alterations may prominently affect the properties of neuronal networks in the brain in such a manner that impaired cognitive ability and lower intelligence are observed. The reported association of synaptic heterotrimeric G proteins with cognitive ability clearly points to a new direction in the study of the genetic basis of cognitive ability.

Abstract

Recent research indicates that language processing relies on brain areas dedicated to perception and action. For example, processing words denoting manipulable objects has been shown to activate a fronto-parietal network involved in actual tool use. This is suggested to reflect the knowledge the subject has about how objects are moved and used. However, information about how to use an object may be much more central to the conceptual representation of an object than information about how to move an object. Therefore, there may be much more fine-grained distinctions between objects on the neural level, especially related to the usability of manipulable objects. In the current study, we investigated whether a distinction can be made between words denoting (1) objects that can be picked up to move (e.g., volumetrically manipulable objects: bookend, clock) and (2) objects that must be picked up to use (e.g., functionally manipulable objects: cup, pen). The results show that functionally manipulable words elicit greater levels of activation in the fronto-parietal sensorimotor areas than volumetrically manipulable words. This suggests that indeed a distinction can be made between different types of manipulable objects. Specifically, how an object is used functionally rather than whether an object can be displaced with the hand is reflected in semantic representations in the brain.

Abstract

A key mechanism in the organization of turns at talk in conversation is the ability to anticipate or PROJECT the moment of completion of a current speaker’s turn. Some authors suggest that this is achieved via lexicosyntactic cues, while others argue that projection is based on intonational contours. We tested these hypotheses in an on-line experiment, manipulating the presence of symbolic (lexicosyntactic) content and intonational contour of utterances recorded in natural conversations. When hearing the original recordings, subjects can anticipate turn endings with the same degree of accuracy attested in real conversation. With intonational contour entirely removed (leaving intact words and syntax, with a completely flat pitch), there is no change in subjects’ accuracy of end-of-turn projection. But in the opposite case (with original intonational contour intact, but with no recognizable words), subjects’ performance deteriorates significantly. These results establish that the symbolic (i.e. lexicosyntactic) content of an utterance is necessary (and possibly sufficient) for projecting the moment of its completion, and thus for regulating conversational turn-taking. By contrast, and perhaps surprisingly, intonational contour is neither necessary nor sufficient for end-of-turn projection.

Abstract

As Rose (2006) discusses in the lead article, two camps can be identified in the field of gesture research: those who believe that gesticulation enhances communication by providing extra information to the listener, and on the other hand those who believe that gesticulation is not communicative, but rather that it facilitates speaker-internal word finding processes. I review a number of key studies relevant for this controversy, and conclude that the available empirical evidence is supporting the notion that gesture is a communicative device which can compensate for problems in speech by providing information in gesture. Following that, I discuss the finding by Rose and Douglas (2001) that making gestures does facilitate word production in some patients with aphasia. I argue that the gestures produced in the experiment by Rose and Douglas are not guaranteed to be of the same kind as the gestures that are produced spontaneously under naturalistic, communicative conditions, which makes it difficult to generalise from that particular study to general gesture behavior. As a final point, I encourage researchers in the area of aphasia to put more emphasis on communication in naturalistic contexts (e.g., conversation) in testing the capabilities of people with aphasia.

Abstract

Human communication is often thought about in terms of transmitted messages in a conventional code like a language. But communication requires a specialized interactive intelligence. Senders have to be able to perform recipient design, while receivers need to be able to do intention recognition, knowing that recipient design has taken place. To study this interactive intelligence in the lab, we developed a new task that taps directly into the underlying abilities to communicate in the absence of a conventional code. We show that subjects are remarkably successful communicators under these conditions, especially when senders get feedback from receivers. Signaling is accomplished by the manner in which an instrumental action is performed, such that instrumentally dysfunctional components of an action are used to convey communicative intentions. The findings have important implications for the nature of the human communicative infrastructure, and the task opens up a line of experimentation on human communication.

Abstract

The current study reports specific cases in which a positive transfer of perceptual ability from the music domain to the language domain occurs. We tested whether musical training enhances discrimination and identification performance of L2 speech sounds (timing features, nasal consonants and vowels). Native Dutch and Japanese speakers with different musical training experience, matched for their estimated verbal IQ, participated in the experiments. Results indicated that musical training strongly increases one’s ability to perceive timing information in speech signals. We also found a benefit of musical training on discrimination performance for a subset of the tested vowel contrasts.

Abstract

In two studies we investigated 2-year-old children's answers to predicate-focus questions depending on the preceding context. Children were presented with a successive series of short video clips showing transitive actions (e.g., frog washing duck) in which either the action (action-new) or the patient (patient-new) was the changing, and therefore new, element. During the last scene the experimenter asked the question (e.g., “What's the frog doing now?”). We found that children expressed the action and the patient in the patient-new condition but expressed only the action in the action-new condition. These results show that children are sensitive to both the predicate-focus question and newness in context. A further finding was that children expressed new patients in their answers more often when there was a verbal context prior to the questions than when there was not.

Abstract

Reviews the book, Sounds and Perception: New Philosophical Essays edited by Matthew Nudds and Casey O'Callaghan (2010). This collection of thought-provoking philosophical essays contains chapters on particular aspects of sound perception, as well as a series of essays focusing on the issue of sound location. The chapters on specific topics include several perspectives on how we hear speech, one of the most well-studied aspects of auditory perception in empirical research. Most of the book consists of a series of essays approaching the experience of hearing sounds by focusing on where sounds are in space. An impressive range of opinions on this issue is presented, likely thanks to the fact that the book's editors represent dramatically different viewpoints. The wave based view argues that sounds are located near the perceiver, although the sounds also provide information about objects around the listener, including the source of the sound. In contrast, the source based view holds that sounds are experienced as near or at their sources. The editors acknowledge that additional methods should be used in conjunction with introspection, but they argue that theories of perceptual experience should nevertheless respect phenomenology. With such a range of views derived largely from the same introspective methodology, it remains unresolved which phenomenological account is to be respected.

Abstract

Emotional signals are crucial for sharing important information, with conspecifics, for example, to warn humans of danger. Humans use a range of different cues to communicate to others how they feel, including facial, vocal, and gestural signals. We examined the recognition of nonverbal emotional vocalizations, such as screams and laughs, across two dramatically different cultural groups. Western participants were compared to individuals from remote, culturally isolated Namibian villages. Vocalizations communicating the so-called “basic emotions” (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise) were bidirectionally recognized. In contrast, a set of additional emotions was only recognized within, but not across, cultural boundaries. Our findings indicate that a number of primarily negative emotions have vocalizations that can be recognized across cultures, while most positive emotions are communicated with culture-specific signals.