Publications

Abstract

Rhythm and language-related traits are phenotypically correlated, but their genetic overlap is largely unknown. Here, we leveraged two large-scale genome-wide association studies performed to shed light on the shared genetics of rhythm (N=606,825) and dyslexia (N=1,138,870). Our results reveal an intricate shared genetic and neurobiological architecture, and lay groundwork for resolving longstanding debates about the potential co-evolution of human language and musical traits.

Abstract

Introduction

Children's early language and communication skills are efficiently measured using parent report, for example, communicative development inventories (CDIs). These have scalable potential to determine risk of later language delay, and associations between delay and risk factors such as prematurity and poverty. However, there may be measurement difficulties in parent reports, including anomalous directions of association between child age/socioeconomic status and reported language. Findings vary on whether parents may report older infants as having smaller vocabularies than younger infants, for example.

Methods

We analysed data from the UK Communicative Development Inventory (Words and Gestures); UK-CDI (W&G) to determine whether anomalous associations would be replicated in this population, and/or with gesture. In total 1204 families of children aged 8–18 months (598 girls, matched to UK population for income, parental education and ethnicity as far as possible) completed Vocabulary and Gesture scales of the UK-CDI (W&G).

Results

Overall scores on the Gesture scale showed more significant relationships with biological risk factors including prematurity than did Vocabulary scores. Gesture also showed more straightforward relationships with social risk factors including income. Relationships between vocabulary and social risk factors were less straightforward; some at-risk groups reported higher vocabulary scores than other groups.

Discussion

We conclude that vocabulary report may be less accurate than gesture for this age. Parents have greater knowledge of language than gesture milestones, hence may report expectations for vocabulary, not observed vocabulary. We also conclude that gesture should be included in early language scales partly because of its greater, more straightforward association with many risk factors for language delay.

Abstract

Children's gestures can reveal important information about their problem-solving strategies. This study investigated whether the information children express only in gesture is accessible to adults not trained in gesture coding. Twenty teachers and 20 undergraduates viewed videotaped vignettes of 12 children explaining their solutions to equations. Six children expressed the same strategy in speech and gesture, and 6 expressed different strategies. After each vignette, adults described the child's reasoning. For children who expressed different strategies in speech and gesture, both teachers and undergraduates frequently described strategies that children had not expressed in speech. These additional strategies could often be traced
to the children's gestures. Sensitivity to gesture was comparable for teachers and
undergraduates. Thus, even without training, adults glean information, not only from children's words but also from their hands.

Abstract

It is very widely acknowledged that linguistic routines are not only embodiments of the sociocultural values of speech communities that use them, but their knowledge and appropriate use also form an essential part of a speaker's communicative/pragmatic competence. Despite this, many studies concentrate more on describing the use of routines rather than explaining the socio-cultural aspects of their meaning and the way they affect their use. It is the contention of this paper that there is the need to go beyond descriptions to explanations and explications of the use and meaning of routines that are culturally and socially revealing. This view is illustrated by a comparative analysis of functionally equivalent formulaic expressions in English and Ewe. The similarities are noted and the differences explained in terms of the socio-cultural traditions associated with the respective languages. It is argued that insights gained from such studies are valuable for crosscultural understanding and communication as well as for second language pedagogy.

Abstract

Are regular morphologically complex words stored in the mental lexicon? Answers to this question have ranged from full listing to parsing for every regular complex word. We investigated the roles of storage and parsing in the visual domain for the productive Dutch plural suffix -en.Two experiments are reported that show that storage occurs for high-frequency noun plurals. A mathematical formalization of a parallel dual-route race model is presented that accounts for the patterns in the observed reaction time data with essentially one free parameter, the speed of the parsing route. Parsing for noun plurals appears to be a time-costly process, which we attribute to the ambiguity of -en,a suffix that is predominantly used as a verbal ending. A third experiment contrasted nouns and verbs. This experiment revealed no effect of surface frequency for verbs, but again a solid effect for nouns. Together, our results suggest that many noun plurals are stored in order to avoid the time-costly resolution of the subcategorization conflict that arises when the -ensuffix is attached to nouns.

Abstract

In this paper, I present an analysis of the so-called tense forms of Biblical Hebrew. While there is fairly broad consensus on the interpretation of the yiqtol tense form, the interpretation of the qdtal tense form has led to considerable controversy. I will argue that the qātal form has no intrinsic semantic value and that it serves a pragmatic function only, namely, signaling to the hearer that the event or state expressed by the verb cannot be tightly integrated into the discourse representation of the hearer, given the speaker's estimate of their common ground.

Abstract

This paper addresses the relation between meaning, lexical productivity, and frequency of use. Using density estimation as a visualization tool, we show that differences in semantic structure can be reflected in probability density functions estimated for word frequency distributions. We call attention to an example of a bimodal density, and suggest that bimodality arises when distributions of well-entrenched lexical tems, which appear to be lognormal, are mixed with distributions of productively reated nonce formations

Abstract

The Basic Variety (BV) as conceived by Klein and Perdue (K&P) is a relatively stable state in the process of spontaneous (adult) second language acquisition, characterized by a small set of phrasal, semantic and pragmatic principles. These principles are derived by inductive generalization from a fairly large body of data. They are considered by K&P as roughly equivalent to those of Universal Grammar (UG) in the sense of Chomsky's Minimalist Program, with the proviso that the BV allows for only weak (or unmarked) formal features. The present article first discusses the viability of the BV principles proposed by K&P, arguing that some of them are in need of clarification with learner varieties, and that they are, in any case, not likely to be part of UG, as they exclude phenomena (e.g., so-called psych verbs) that cannot be ruled out even from the core of natural language. The article also considers the proposal that learner varieties of the BV type are completely unmarked instantiations of UG. Putting aside problems arising from the Minimalist Program, especially the question whether a grammar with only weak features would be a factual possibility and what it would look like, it is argued that the BV as characterized by K&P must be considered as the result of a process that crucially differs from first language acquisition as furnished by UG for a number of reasons, including properties of the BV itself. As a matter of fact, several of the properties claimed for the BV by K&P are more likely the result of general learning strategies than of language-specific principles. If this is correct, the characterization of the BV is a fairly interesting result, albeit of a rather different type than K&P suggest.

Abstract

Humans engage with music for various reasons that range from emotional regulation and relaxation to social bonding. While there are large inter-individual differences in how much humans enjoy music, little is known about the origins of those differences. Here, we disentangle the genetic factors underlying such variation. We collect data on several facets of music reward sensitivity, as measured by the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire, plus music perceptual abilities and general reward sensitivity from a large sample of Swedish twins (N = 9169; 2305 complete pairs). We estimate that genetic effects contribute up to 54% of the variability in music reward sensitivity, with 70% of these effects being independent of music perceptual abilities and general reward sensitivity. Furthermore, multivariate analyses show that genetic and environmental influences on the different facets of music reward sensitivity are partly distinct, uncovering distinct pathways to music enjoyment and different patterns of genetic associations with objectively assessed music perceptual abilities. These results paint a complex picture in which partially distinct sources of variation contribute to different aspects of musical enjoyment.

Abstract

The notion of relational grammar is extented to ternary relations and illustrated by a fragment of English. Some of Peirce's terms for ternary relations are shown to be incorrect and corrected.

Abstract

When faced with an ambiguous novel word such as ‘ranana’, how do listeners decide whether they heard a mispronunciation of a familiar target (‘banana’) or a label for an unfamiliar novel item? We examined this question by combining visual-world eye-tracking with an offline forced-choice judgment paradigm. In two studies, we show evidence that participants entertain repair and novel label interpretations of novel words that were created by editing a familiar target word in multiple phonetic features (Experiment 1) or a single phonetic feature (Experiment 2). Repair (‘ranana’ = a banana) and learning (‘ranana’ = a novel referent) were both common interpretation strategies, and learning was strongly associated with visual attention to the novel image after it was referred to in a sentence. This indicates that repair and learning are both valid strategies for understanding novel words that depend upon a set of similar mechanisms, and suggests that attention during listening is causally related to whether one learns or repairs.

Abstract

How do children isolate the semantic package contained in verb roots in the Mayan language Tzeltal? One might imagine that the canonical CVC shape of roots characteristic of Mayan languages would make the job simple, but the root is normally preceded and followed by affixes which mask its identity. Pye (1983) demonstrated that, in Kiche' Mayan, prosodic salience overrides semantic salience, and children's first words in Kiche' are often composed of only the final (stressed) syllable constituted by the final consonant of the CVC root and a 'meaningless' termination suffix. Intonation thus plays a crucial role in early Kiche' morphological development. Tzeltal presents a rather different picture: The first words of children around the age of 1;6 are bare roots, children strip off all prefixes and suffixes which are obligatory in adult speech. They gradually add them, starting with the suffixes (which receive the main stress), but person prefixes are omitted in some contexts past a child's third birthday, and one obligatory aspectual prefix (x-) is systematically omitted by the four children in my longitudinal study even after they are four years old. Tzeltal children's first verbs generally show faultless isolation of the root. An account in terms of intonation or stress cannot explain this ability (the prefixes are not all syllables; the roots are not always stressed). This paper suggests that probable clues include the fact that the CVC root stays constant across contexts (with some exceptions) whereas the affixes vary, that there are some linguistic contexts where the root occurs without any prefixes (relatively frequent in the input), and that the Tzeltal discourse convention of responding by repeating with appropriate deictic alternation (e.g., "I see it." "Oh, you see it.") highlights the root.

Abstract

This study is about the principles for constructing polite speech. The core of it was published as Brown and Levinson (1978); here it is reissued with a new introduction which surveys the now considerable literature in linguistics, psychology and the social sciences that the original extended essay stimulated, and suggests new directions for research. We describe and account for some remarkable parallelisms in the linguistic construction of utterances with which people express themselves in different languges and cultures. A motive for these parallels is isolated - politeness, broadly defined to include both polite friendliness and polite formality - and a universal model is constructed outlining the abstract principles underlying polite usages. This is based on the detailed study of three unrelated languages and cultures: the Tamil of south India, the Tzeltal spoken by Mayan Indians in Chiapas, Mexico, and the English of the USA and England, supplemented by examples from other cultures. Of general interest is the point that underneath the apparent diversity of polite behaviour in different societies lie some general pan-human principles of social interaction, and the model of politeness provides a tool for analysing the quality of social relations in any society.

Abstract

Language processing is rapidly incremental, but evidence bearing upon this assumption comes from very few languages. In this paper we report on a study of incremental processing in Murrinhpatha, a polysynthetic Australian language, which expresses complex sentence-level meanings in a single verb, the full meaning of which is not clear until the final morph. Forty native Murrinhpatha speakers participated in a visual world eyetracking experiment in which they viewed two complex scenes as they heard a verb describing one of the scenes. The scenes were selected so that the verb describing the target scene had either no overlap with a possible description of the competitor image, or overlapped from the start (onset overlap) or at the end of the verb (rhyme overlap). The results showed that, despite meaning only being clear at the end of the verb, Murrinhpatha speakers made incremental predictions that differed across conditions. The findings demonstrate that processing in polysynthetic languages is rapid and incremental, yet unlike in commonly studied languages like English, speakers make parsing predictions based on information associated with bound morphs rather than discrete words.

Abstract

Human communication is inherently multimodal. Auditory speech, but also visual cues can be used to understand another talker. Most studies of audiovisual speech perception have focused on the perception of speech segments (i.e., speech sounds). However, less is known about the influence of visual information on the perception of suprasegmental aspects of speech like lexical stress. In two experiments, we investigated the influence of different visual cues (e.g., facial articulatory cues and beat gestures) on the audiovisual perception of lexical stress. We presented auditory lexical stress continua of disyllabic Dutch stress pairs together with videos of a speaker producing stress on the first or second syllable (e.g., articulating VOORnaam or voorNAAM). Moreover, we combined and fully crossed the face of the speaker producing lexical stress on either syllable with a gesturing body producing a beat gesture on either the first or second syllable. Results showed that people successfully used visual articulatory cues to stress in muted videos. However, in audiovisual conditions, we were not able to find an effect of visual articulatory cues. In contrast, we found that the temporal alignment of beat gestures with speech robustly influenced participants' perception of lexical stress. These results highlight the importance of considering suprasegmental aspects of language in multimodal contexts.

Abstract

Expressions of politeness such as 'please' are prominent elements of interactional conduct that are explicitly targeted in early socialization and are subject to cultural expectations around socially desirable behavior. Yet their specific interactional functions remain poorly understood. Using conversation analysis supplemented with systematic coding, this study investigates when and where interactants use 'please' in everyday requests. We find that 'please' is rare, occurring in only 7 percent of request attempts. Interactants use 'please' to manage face-threats when a request is ill fitted to its immediate interactional context. Within this, we identify two environments in which 'please' prototypically occurs. First, 'please' is used when the requestee has demonstrated unwillingness to comply. Second, 'please' is used when the request is intrusive due to its incompatibility with the requestee’s engagement in a competing action trajectory. Our findings advance research on politeness and extend Goffman’s theory of face-work, with particular salience for scholarship on request behavior.

Abstract

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty with neurodevelopmental origins, manifesting as reduced accuracy and speed in reading and spelling. It is substantially heritable and frequently co-occurs with other neurodevelopmental conditions, particularly attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Here, we investigate the genetic structure underlying dyslexia and a range of psychiatric traits using results from genome-wide association studies of dyslexia, ADHD, autism, anorexia nervosa, anxiety, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder,
schizophrenia, and Tourette syndrome. Genomic Structural Equation Modelling (GenomicSEM) showed heightened support for a model consisting of five correlated latent genomic factors described as: F1) compulsive disorders (including obsessive-compulsive disorder, anorexia nervosa, Tourette syndrome), F2) psychotic disorder (including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia), F3) internalising disorders (including anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder), F4) neurodevelopmental traits (including autism, ADHD), and F5) attention and learning difficulties (including ADHD, dyslexia). ADHD loaded more strongly on the attention and learning difficulties latent factor (F5) than on the neurodevelopmental traits latent factor (F4). The attention and learning difficulties latent factor (F5) was positively correlated with internalising disorders (.40), neurodevelopmental traits (.25) and psychotic disorders (.17) latent factors, and negatively correlated with the compulsive disorders (–.16) latent factor. These factor correlations are mirrored in genetic correlations observed between the attention and learning difficulties latent factor and other cognitive, psychological and wellbeing traits. We further investigated genetic variants underlying both dyslexia and ADHD, which implicated 49 loci (40 not previously found in GWAS of the individual traits) mapping to 174 genes (121 not found in GWAS of individual traits) as potential pleiotropic variants. Our study confirms the increased genetic relation between dyslexia and ADHD versus other psychiatric traits and uncovers novel pleiotropic variants affecting both traits. In future, analyses including additional co-occurring traits such as dyscalculia and dyspraxia will allow a clearer definition of the attention and learning difficulties latent factor, yielding further insights into factor structure and pleiotropic effects.

Abstract

Studies of perception have long shown that the brain adds information to its sensory analysis of the physical environment. A touchstone example for humans is language use: to comprehend a physical signal like speech, the brain must add linguistic knowledge, including syntax. Yet, syntactic rules and representations are widely assumed to be atemporal (i.e., abstract and not bound by time), so they must be translated into time-varying signals for speech comprehension and production. Here, we test 3 different models of the temporal spell-out of syntactic structure against brain activity of people listening to Dutch stories: an integratory bottom-up parser, a predictive top-down parser, and a mildly predictive left-corner parser. These models build exactly the same structure but differ in when syntactic information is added by the brain—this difference is captured in the (temporal distribution of the) complexity metric “incremental node count.” Using temporal response function models with both acoustic and information-theoretic control predictors, node counts were regressed against source-reconstructed delta-band activity acquired with magnetoencephalography. Neural dynamics in left frontal and temporal regions most strongly reflect node counts derived by the top-down method, which postulates syntax early in time, suggesting that predictive structure building is an important component of Dutch sentence comprehension. The absence of strong effects of the left-corner model further suggests that its mildly predictive strategy does not represent Dutch language comprehension well, in contrast to what has been found for English. Understanding when the brain projects its knowledge of syntax onto speech, and whether this is done in language-specific ways, will inform and constrain the development of mechanistic models of syntactic structure building in the brain.

Abstract

Word-initial CVC syllables are detected faster in words beginning consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel (CVCV-) than in words beginning consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant (CVCC-). This effect was reported independently by M. Taft and G. Hambly (1985, Journal of Memory and Language, 24, 320–335) and by A. Cutler, J. Mehler, D. Norris, and J. Segui (1986, Journal of Memory and Language, 25, 385–400). Taft and Hambly explained the effect in terms of lexical factors. This explanation cannot account for Cutler et al.'s results, in which the effect also appeared with nonwords and foreign words. Cutler et al. suggested that CVCV-sequences might simply be easier to perceive than CVCC-sequences. The present study confirms this suggestion, and explains it as a reflection of listener expectations constructed on the basis of distributional characteristics of the language.

Abstract

Previous research has shown that listeners use the prosodic structure of utterances in a predictive fashion in sentence comprehension, to direct attention to accented words. Acoustically identical words spliced into sentence contexts arc responded to differently if the prosodic structure of the context is \ aricd: when the preceding prosody indicates that the word will he accented, responses are faster than when the preceding prosodv is inconsistent with accent occurring on that word. In the present series of experiments speech hybridisation techniques were first used to interchange the timing patterns within pairs of prosodic variants of utterances, independently of the pitch and intensity contours. The time-adjusted utterances could then serve as a basis lor the orthogonal manipulation of the three prosodic dimensions of pilch, intensity and rhythm. The overall pattern of results showed that when listeners use prosody to predict accent location, they do not simply rely on a single prosodic dimension, hut exploit the interaction between pitch, intensity and rhythm.

Abstract

In three experiments, the processing of lexical tone in Cantonese was examined. Cantonese listeners more often accepted a nonword as a word when the only difference between the nonword and the word was in tone, especially when the F0 onset difference between correct and erroneous tone was small. Same–different judgments by these listeners were also slower and less accurate when the only difference between two syllables was in tone, and this was true whether the F0 onset difference between the two tones was large or small. Listeners with no knowledge of Cantonese produced essentially the same same-different judgment pattern as that produced by the native listeners, suggesting that the results display the effects of simple perceptual processing rather than of linguistic knowledge. It is argued that the processing of lexical tone distinctions may be slowed, relative to the processing of segmental distinctions, and that, in speeded-response tasks, tone is thus more likely to be misprocessed than is segmental structure.

Abstract

Research on the exploitation of prosodic information in the recognition of spoken language is reviewed. The research falls into three main areas: the use of prosody in the recognition of spoken words, in which most attention has been paid to the question of whether the prosodic structure of a word plays a role in initial contact with stored lexical representations; the use of prosody in the computation of syntactic structure, in which the resolution of global and local ambiguities has formed the central focus; and the role of prosody in the processing of discourse structure, in which there has been a preponderance of work on the contribution of accentuation and deaccentuation to integration of concepts with an existing discourse model. The review reveals that in each area progress has been made towards new conceptions of prosody's role in processing, and in particular this has involved abandonment of previously held deterministic views of the relationship between prosodic structure and other aspects of linguistic structure

Abstract

Psycholinguists strive to construct a model of human language processing in general. But this does not imply that they should confine their research to universal aspects of linguistic structure, and avoid research on language-specific phenomena. First, even universal characteristics of language structure can only be accurately observed cross-linguistically. This point is illustrated here by research on the role of the syllable in spoken-word recognition, on the perceptual processing of vowels versus consonants, and on the contribution of phonetic assimilation phonemena to phoneme identification. In each case, it is only by looking at the pattern of effects across languages that it is possible to understand the general principle. Second, language-specific processing can certainly shed light on the universal model of language comprehension. This second point is illustrated by studies of the exploitation of vowel harmony in the lexical segmentation of Finnish, of the recognition of Dutch words with and without vowel epenthesis, and of the contribution of different kinds of lexical prosodic structure (tone, pitch accent, stress) to the initial activation of candidate words in lexical access. In each case, aspects of the universal processing model are revealed by analysis of these language-specific effects. In short, the study of spoken-language processing by human listeners requires cross-linguistic comparison.

Abstract

Speech production is constrained at all levels by the demands of speech perception. The speaker's primary aim is successful communication, and to this end semantic, syntactic and lexical choices are directed by the needs of the listener. Even at the articulatory level, some aspects of production appear to be perceptually constrained, for example the blocking of phonological distortions under certain conditions. An apparent exception to this pattern is word boundary information, which ought to be extremely useful to listeners, but which is not reliably coded in speech. It is argued that the solution to this apparent problem lies in rethinking the concept of the boundary of the lexical access unit. Speech rhythm provides clear information about the location of stressed syllables, and listeners do make use of this information. If stressed syllables can serve as the determinants of word lexical access codes, then once again speakers are providing precisely the necessary form of speech information to facilitate perception.

Abstract

Studies of human speech processing have provided evidence for a segmentation strategy in the perception of continuous speech, whereby a word boundary is postulated, and a lexical access procedure initiated, at each metrically strong syllable. The likely success of this strategy was here estimated against the characteristics of the English vocabulary. Two computerized dictionaries were found to list approximately three times as many words beginning with strong syllables (i.e. syllables containing a full vowel) as beginning with weak syllables (i.e. syllables containing a reduced vowel). Consideration of frequency of lexical word occurrence reveals that words beginning with strong syllables occur on average more often than words beginning with weak syllables. Together, these findings motivate an estimate for everyday speech recognition that approximately 85% of lexical words (i.e. excluding function words) will begin with strong syllables. This estimate was tested against a corpus of 190 000 words of spontaneous British English conversion. In this corpus, 90% of lexical words were found to begin with strong syllables. This suggests that a strategy of postulating word boundaries at the onset of strong syllables would have a high success rate in that few actual lexical word onsets would be missed.

Abstract

A long-standing question in language development concerns the nature of the relationship between early lexical and grammatical knowledge. The very strong correlation between the two has led some to argue that lexical and grammatical knowledge may be inseparable, consistent with psycholinguistic theories that eschew a distinction between the two systems. However, little research has explicitly examined whether early lexical and grammatical knowledge are statistically separable. Moreover, there are two under-appreciated methodological challenges in such research. First, the relationship between lexical and grammatical knowledge may change during development. Second, non-linear mappings between true and observed scores on scales of lexical and grammatical knowledge could lead to spurious multidimensionality. In the present study, we overcome these challenges by using vocabulary and grammar data from several developmental time points and a statistical method robust to such non-linear mappings. In Study 1, we examined item-level vocabulary and grammar data from two American English samples from a large online repository of data from studies employing a commonly used language development scale. We found clear evidence that vocabulary and grammar were separable by two years of age. In Study 2, we combined data from two longitudinal studies of language acquisition that used the same scale (at 18/19, 21, 24 and 30 months) and found evidence that vocabulary and grammar were, under some conditions, separable by 18 months. Results indicate that, while there is clearly a very strong relationship between vocabulary and grammar knowledge in early language development, the two are separable. Implications for the mechanisms underlying language development are discussed.

Abstract

This chapter introduces the origins and development of our current anatomical terminology. It scrutinizes the historical evolution and etymological significance of the over 1900 official anatomical terms in the current nomenclature, underscoring their impact on the contemporary comprehension of cognitive neuroanatomy. The chapter traces unification efforts from the Basel Nomina Anatomica in 1895 to the 1998 Terminologia Anatomica, noting challenges arising from outdated terminology in light of recent anatomical advancements.

Highlighting the influence of terminologies on interpretations of brain anatomy, the chapter explores several anatomical mapping methods such as surface, sectional, connectional, and functional anatomy. It illuminates discrepancies and controversies, exemplified by divergent interpretations of the number of brain lobes and the definitions of 'Broca' and 'Wernicke' areas.

The chapter explores anatomical terms' historical and cultural underpinnings, encompassing mythonyms, eponyms, and cultural influences on nomenclature. It critically examines the implications of these terminologies on contemporary research and shows that Large Language Models mirror these discrepancies. It underscores the need for more inclusive and culturally sensitive approaches in anatomical education.

Lastly, we advocate for updating anatomical nomenclature, suggesting that a deeper understanding of these terminologies could provide insights and aid in resolving ongoing debates in the field. This examination sheds light on historical knowledge and emphasizes the dynamic interplay between language, culture, and anatomy in shaping our comprehension of the neurobiology of the brain and how we navigate neuroanatomy in the 21st century.

Abstract

The human brain is an intricate network of cortical regions interconnected by white matter pathways, dynamically supporting cognitive functions. While cortical asymmetries have been consistently reported, the asymmetry of white matter connections remains less explored. This chapter provides a brief overview of asymmetries observed at the cortical, subcortical, cytoarchitectural, and receptor levels before exploring the detailed connectional anatomy of the human brain. It thoroughly examines the lateralization and interindividual variability of 56 distinct white matter tracts, offering a comprehensive review of their structural characteristics and interindividual variability. Additionally, we provide an extensive update on the asymmetry of a wide range of white matter tracts using high-resolution data from the Human Connectome Project (7T HCP www.humanconnectome.org). Future research and advanced quantitative analyses are crucial to understanding fully how asymmetry contributes to interindividual variability. This comprehensive exploration enhances our understanding of white matter organization and its potential implications for brain function.

Abstract

We report four experiments investigating the effect of prosody on listening comprehension in 11-13-year-old children. Across all experiments, participants listened to short object descriptions and answered content-based questions about said objects. In Experiments 1-3, the descriptions were read in an emotionally positive or neutral tone of voice. In Experiment 4, the descriptions were read by a neutral human voice or by text-to-speech software. The results from Experiments 1-3 consistently showed higher accuracy (i.e. more correct answers to the questions) when the descriptions were read using positive prosody. Experiment 4 found higher accuracy for the human voice compared to the text-to-speech recordings. The human voice was also rated as more pleasant and easier to understand than the text-to-speech voice. In sum, this study found that positive, compared to neutral, prosody, and a human voice, compared to artificial speech synthesis, can improve listening comprehension, showcasing the role of prosody in listening comprehension.

Abstract

Increasing evidence suggests that interlocutors use visual communicative signals to form predictions about unfolding utterances, but there is little data on the predictive potential of facial signals in conversation. In an online experiment with virtual agents, we examine whether facial signals produced by an addressee may allow speakers to anticipate the response to a question before it is given. Participants (n = 80) viewed videos of short conversation fragments between two virtual humans. Each fragment ended with the Questioner asking a question, followed by a pause during which the Responder looked either straight at the Questioner (baseline), or averted their gaze, or accompanied the straight gaze with one of the following facial signals: brow raise, brow frown, nose wrinkle, smile, squint, mouth corner pulled back (dimpler). Participants then indicated on a 6-point scale whether they expected a “yes” or “no” response. Analyses revealed that all signals received different ratings relative to the baseline: brow raises, dimplers, and smiles were associated with more positive responses, gaze aversions, brow frowns, nose wrinkles, and squints with more negative responses. Qur findings show that interlocutors may form strong associations between facial signals and upcoming responses to questions, highlighting their predictive potential in face-to-face conversation.

Abstract

Previous research has suggested the importance of relational language and working memory in children’s relational reasoning. The tendency to use language (e.g., using more relational than object-focused language, prioritizing focal objects over background in linguistic descriptions) could reflect children’s biases toward the relational versus object-based solutions in a relational match-to-sample (RMTS) task. In the lack of any apparent object match as a foil option, object-focused children might rely on other cognitive mechanisms (i.e., working memory) to choose a relational match in the RMTS task. The current study examined the interactive roles of language- and working memory-related sources of variation in Turkish-learning preschoolers’ relational reasoning. We collected data from 4- and 5-year-olds (N = 41) via Zoom in the RMTS task, a scene description task, and a backward word span task. Generalized binomial mixed effects models revealed that children who used more relational language and background-focused scene descriptions performed worse in the relational reasoning task. Furthermore, children with less frequent relational language use and focal object descriptions of the scenes benefited more from working memory to succeed in the relational reasoning task. These results suggest additional working memory demands for object-focused children to choose relational matches in the RMTS task, highlighting the importance of examining the interactive effects of different cognitive mechanisms on relational reasoning.

Abstract

Face-to-face communication is not only about ‘what’ is said but also ‘how’ it is said, both in speech and bodily signals. Beat gestures are rhythmic hand movements that typically accompany prosodic prominence in con-versation. Yet, it is still unclear how beat gestures influence language comprehension. On the one hand, beat gestures may share the same functional role of focus markers as prosodic prominence. Accordingly, they would drive attention towards the concurrent speech and highlight its content. On the other hand, beat gestures may trigger inferences of high speaker confidence, generate the expectation that the sentence content is correct and thereby elicit the commitment to the truth of the statement. This study directly disentangled the two hypotheses by evaluating additive and interactive effects of prosodic prominence and beat gestures on language comprehension. Participants watched videos of a speaker uttering sentences and judged whether each sentence was true or false. Sentences sometimes contained a world knowledge violation that may go unnoticed (‘semantic illusion’). Combining beat gestures with prosodic prominence led to a higher degree of semantic illusion, making more world knowledge violations go unnoticed during language comprehension. These results challenge current theories proposing that beat gestures are visual focus markers. To the contrary, they suggest that beat gestures automatically trigger inferences of high speaker confidence and thereby elicit the commitment to the truth of the statement, in line with Grice’s cooperative principle in conversation. More broadly, our findings also highlight the influence of metacognition on language comprehension in face-to-face ommunication.

Abstract

The human Xp11.23-p11.22 interval has been implicated in several inherited diseases including Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome; three forms of X-linked hypercalciuric nephrolithiaisis; and the eye disorders retinitis pigmentosa 2, congenital stationary night blindness, and Aland Island eye disease. In constructing YAC contigs spanning Xp11. 23-p11.22, we have previously shown that the region around the synaptophysin (SYP) gene is refractory to cloning in YACs, but highly stable in cosmids. Preliminary analysis of the latter suggested that this might reflect a high density of coding sequences and we therefore undertook the complete sequencing of a SYP-containing cosmid. Sequence data were extensively analyzed using computer programs such as CENSOR (to mask repeats), BLAST (for homology searches), and GRAIL and GENE-ID (to predict exons). This revealed the presence of 29 putative exons, organized into three genes, in addition to the 7 exons of the complete SYP coding region, all mapping within a 44-kb interval. Two genes are novel, one (CACNA1F) showing high homology to alpha1 subunits of calcium channels, the other (LMO6) encoding a product with significant similarity to LIM-domain proteins. RT-PCR and Northern blot studies confirmed that these loci are indeed transcribed. The third locus is the previously described, but not previously localized, A4 differentiation-dependent gene. Given that the intron-exon boundaries predicted by the analysis are consistent with previous information where available, we have been able to suggest the genomic organization of the novel genes with some confidence. The region has an elevated GC content (>53%), and we identified CpG islands associated with the 5' ends of SYP, A4, and LMO6. The order of loci was Xpter-A4-LMO6-SYP-CACNA1F-Xcen, with intergenic distances ranging from approximately 300 bp to approximately 5 kb. The density of transcribed sequences in this area (>80%) is comparable to that found in the highly gene-rich chromosomal band Xq28. Further studies may aid our understanding of the long-range organization surrounding such gene-enriched regions.

Abstract

The brain is the most magnificent structure, and we are only at the cusp of unraveling some of its complexity. Neuroanatomy is the best tool to map the brain's structural complexity. As such, neuroanatomy is not just an academic exercise; it serves our fundamental understanding of the neurobiology of cognition and improves clinical practice. A deepened anatomical understanding has advanced our conceptual grasp of the evolution of the brain, interindividual variability of cognition in health and disease, and the conceptual shift toward the emergence of cognition. For the past 20 years, diffusion imaging tractography has dramatically facilitated these advances by enabling the study of the delicate networks that orchestrate brain processes (for review, see Thiebaut de Schotten and Forkel, 2022). Several steps are consistent across all studied populations and brain states (health/disease) when analyzing tractography data. We discuss various considerations for dissections across populations and give practical tips on common pitfalls and features to improve the visualization of the dissections. We briefly discuss specific considerations for manual dissections in nonhuman primates. Lastly, we provide an atlas of regions of interest (ROIs) for the most commonly delineated white matter connections in the human brain.

Abstract

Lateralization is a defining characteristic of the human brain, often studied through localized approaches that focus on interhemispheric differences between homologous pairs of regions. It is also important to emphasize an integrative perspective of global brain asymmetry, in which hemispheric differences are understood through global patterns across the entire brain.

Abstract

Finding and facilitating commonalities between the linguistic behaviors of large language models and humans could lead to major breakthroughs in our understanding of the acquisition, processing, and evolution of language. However, most findings on human–LLM similarity can be attributed to training on human data. The field of emergent machine-to-machine communication provides an ideal testbed for discovering which pressures are neural agents naturally exposed to when learning to communicate in isolation, without any human language to start with. Here, we review three cases where mismatches between the emergent linguistic behavior of neural agents and humans were resolved thanks to introducing theoretically-motivated inductive biases. By contrasting humans, large language models, and emergent communication agents, we then identify key pressures at play for language learning and emergence: communicative success, production effort, learnability, and other psycho-/sociolinguistic factors. We discuss their implications and relevance to the field of language evolution and acquisition. By mapping out the necessary inductive biases that make agents' emergent languages more human-like, we not only shed light on the underlying principles of human cognition and communication, but also inform and improve the very use of these models as valuable scientific tools for studying language learning, processing, use, and representation more broadly.

Abstract

Children need to learn the demands of their native language in the early vocabulary development phase. In this dynamic process, parental multimodal input may shape neurodevelopmental trajectories while also being tailored by child-related factors. Moving beyond typically characterized group profiles, in this article, we synthesize growing evidence on the effects of parental multimodal input (amount, quality, or absence), domain-specific input (space and math), and language-specific input (causal verbs and sound symbols) on preterm, full-term, and deaf children's early vocabulary development, focusing primarily on research with children learning Turkish and Turkish Sign Language. We advocate for a theoretical perspective, integrating neonatal characteristics and parental input, and acknowledging the unique constraints of languages.

Abstract

When language abilities in aphasia are assessed in clinical and research settings, the standard practice is to examine each language of a multilingual person separately. But many multilingual individuals, with and without aphasia, mix their languages regularly when they communicate with other speakers who share their languages. We applied a novel approach to scoring language production of a multilingual person with aphasia. Our aim was to discover whether the assessment outcome would differ meaningfully when we count accurate responses in only the target language of the assessment session versus when we apply a translanguaging framework, that is, count all accurate responses, regardless of the language in which they were produced. The participant is a Farsi-German-English speaking woman with chronic moderate aphasia. We examined the participant’s performance on two picture-naming tasks, an answering wh-question task, and an elicited narrative task. The results demonstrated that scores in English, the participant’s third-learned and least-impaired language did not differ between the two scoring methods. Performance in German, the participant’s moderately impaired second language benefited from translanguaging-based scoring across the board. In Farsi, her weakest language post-CVA, the participant’s scores were higher under the translanguaging-based scoring approach in some but not all of the tasks. Our findings suggest that whether a translanguaging-based scoring makes a difference in the results obtained depends on relative language abilities and on pragmatic constraints, with additional influence of the linguistic distances between the languages in question.

Abstract

This study tests the recent claim that Broca’s aphasics are impaired in automatic lexical access, including the retrieval of word meaning. Subjects are required to perform a lexical decision on visually presented prime target pairs. Half of the word targets are preceded by a related word, half by an unrelated word. Primes and targets are presented with a long stimulus-onset-asynchrony (SOA) of 1400 msec and with a short SOA of 300 msec. Normal priming effects are observed in Broca’s aphasics for both SOAs. This result is discussed in the context of the claim that Broca’s aphasics suffer from an impairment in the automatic access of lexical–semantic information. It is argued that none of the current priming studies provides evidence supporting this claim, since with short SOAs priming effects have been reliably obtained in Broca’s aphasics. The results are more compatible with the claim that in many Broca’s aphasics the functional locus of their comprehension deficit is at the level of postlexical integration processes.

Abstract

Background

Neurodevelopmental conditions are highly heritable. Recent studies have shown that genomic heritability estimates can be confounded by genetic effects mediated via the environment (indirect genetic effects). However, the relative importance of direct versus indirect genetic effects on early variability in traits related to neurodevelopmental conditions is unknown.

Methods

The sample included up to 24,692 parent-offspring trios from the Norwegian MoBa cohort. We use Trio-GCTA to estimate latent direct and indirect genetic effects on mother-reported neurodevelopmental traits at age of 3 years (restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests, inattention, hyperactivity, language, social, and motor development). Further, we investigate to what extent direct and indirect effects are attributable to common genetic variants associated with autism, ADHD, developmental dyslexia, educational attainment, and cognitive ability using polygenic scores (PGS) in regression modeling.

Results

We find evidence for contributions of direct and indirect latent common genetic effects to inattention (direct: explaining 4.8% of variance, indirect: 6.7%) hyperactivity (direct: 1.3%, indirect: 9.6%), and restricted and repetitive behaviors (direct: 0.8%, indirect: 7.3%). Direct effects best explained variation in social and communication, language, and motor development (5.1%–5.7%). Direct genetic effects on inattention were captured by PGS for ADHD, educational attainment, and cognitive ability, whereas direct genetic effects on language development were captured by cognitive ability, educational attainment, and autism PGS. Indirect genetic effects on neurodevelopmental traits were primarily captured by educational attainment and/or cognitive ability PGS.

Conclusions

Results were consistent with differential contributions to neurodevelopmental traits in early childhood from direct and indirect genetic effects. Indirect effects were particularly important for hyperactivity and restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests and may be linked to genetic variation associated with cognition and educational attainment. Our findings illustrate the importance of within-family methods for disentangling genetic processes that influence early neurodevelopmental traits, even when identifiable associations are small.

Abstract

Individual differences in using language are prevalent in our daily lives. Language skills are often assessed in vocational (predominantly written language) and diagnostic contexts. Not much is known, however, about individual differences in spoken language skills. The lack of research is in part due to the lack of suitable test instruments. We introduce the Individual Differences in Language Skills (IDLaS-NL) test battery, a set of 31 behavioural tests that can be used to capture variability in language and relevant general cognitive skills in adult speakers of Dutch. The battery was designed to measure word and sentence production and comprehension skills, linguistic knowledge, nonverbal processing speed, working memory, and nonverbal reasoning. The present article outlines the structure of the battery, describes the materials and procedure of each test, and evaluates the battery’s factor structure based on the results of a sample of 748 Dutch adults, aged between 18 and 30 years, most of them students. The analyses demonstrate that the battery has good construct validity and can be reliably administered both in the lab and via the internet. We therefore recommend the battery as a valuable new tool to assess individual differences in language knowledge and skills; this future work may include linking language skills to other aspects of human cognition and life outcomes.

Abstract

Repair is a core building block of human communication, allowing us to address problems of understanding in conversation. Past research has uncovered the basic mechanisms by which interactants signal and solve such problems. However, the focus has been on verbal interaction, neglecting the fact that human communication is inherently multimodal. Here, we focus on a visual signal particularly prevalent in signalling problems of understanding: eyebrow furrows and raises. We present, first, a corpus study showing that differences in eyebrow actions (furrows versus raises) were systematically associated with differences in the format of verbal repair initiations. Second, we present a follow-up study using an avatar that allowed us to test the causal consequences of addressee eyebrow movements, zooming into the effect of eyebrow furrows as signals of trouble in understanding in particular. The results revealed that addressees’ eyebrow furrows have a striking effect on speakers’ speech, leading speakers to produce answers to questions several seconds longer than when not perceiving addressee eyebrow furrows while speaking. Together, the findings demonstrate that eyebrow movements play a communicative role in initiating repair during conversation rather than being merely epiphenomenal and that their occurrence can critically influence linguistic behaviour. Thus, eyebrow movements should be considered core coordination devices in human conversational interaction.

Abstract

We introduce a new method for measuring prediction and language-vision interactions: tracking the trajectories of hand-reaching movements in Virtual Reality (VR) environments. Spatiotemporal trajectory tracking of hand-reaching movements in VR offers an ecologically valid yet controlled medium for conducting experiments in an environment that mirrors characteristics of real-world behaviors. Importantly, it enables tracking the continuous dynamics of processing on a single-trial level. In an exploratory experiment L2 speakers heard predictive or non-predictive sentences (e.g., “The barber cuts the hair” vs. “The coach remembers the hair”). Participants’ task was to move their hands as quickly and as accurately as possible towards the object most relevant to the sentence. We measured reaction times (RTs) and hand-reaching trajectories as indicators of predictive behavior. There was a main effect of predictability: Predictable items were touched faster than unpredictable ones. Importantly, uncertainty was captured using spatiotemporal survival analysis by prolonged fluctuations in upward and downward vertical hand movements before making a final move to target or distractor. Self-correction of prediction errors was revealed by participants switching the direction of hand-reaching movements mid-trial. We conclude that the Virtual Hand Paradigm enables measuring the onset and dynamics of predictive behavior in real time in single and averaged trial data and captures (un)certainty about target objects and the self-correction of prediction error online in ‘close to real-world’ experimental settings. The new method has great potential to provide additional insights about time-course and intermediate states of processing, provisional interpretations and partial target commitments that go beyond other state-of-the-art methods.

Abstract

Stimulus-related changes in cerebral blood oxygenation were measured using high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging sequentially covering visual occipital areas in contiguous sections. During dynamic imaging, healthy subjects silently viewed pseudowords, single false fonts, or length-matched strings of the same false fonts. The paradigm consisted of a sixfold alternation of an activation and a control task. With pseudowords as activation vs single false fonts as control, responses were seen mainly in medial occipital cortex. These responses disappeared when pseudowords were alternated with false font strings as the control and reappeared when false font strings instead of pseudowords served as activation and were alternated with single false fonts. The string-length contrast alone, therefore, is sufficient to account for the activation pattern observed in medial visual cortex when word-like stimuli are contrasted with single characters.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss an inherent difficulty of PET (and fMRI) research in language production. On the one hand, language production presupposes some degree of freedom for the subject, on the other hand, interpretability of results presupposes restrictions of this freedom. This difficulty is reflected in the existing PET literature in some neglect of the general principle to design experiments in such a way that the results do not allow for alternative interpretations. It is argued that by narrowing down the scope of experiments a gain in interpretability can be achieved.

Abstract

One of the earliest sources of mathematical input arises in dyadic parent–child interactions. However, the emphasis has been on parental input only in speech and how input varies across different environmental and child-specific factors remains largely unexplored. Here, we investigated the relationship among parental math input modality and type, children’s gestational status (being preterm vs. full-term born), and vocabulary development. Using book-reading as a medium for parental math input in dyadic interaction, we coded specific math input elicited by Turkish-speaking parents and their 26-month-old children (N = 58, 24 preterms) for speech-only and multimodal (speech and gestures combined) input. Results showed that multimodal math input, as opposed to speech-only math input, was uniquely associated with gestational status, expressive vocabulary, and the interaction between the two. Full-term children with lower expressive vocabulary scores received more multimodal input compared to their preterm peers. However, there was no association between expressive vocabulary and multimodal math input for preterm children. Moreover, cardinality was the most frequent type for both speech-only and multimodal input. These findings suggest that the specific type of multimodal math input can be produced as a function of children’s gestational status and vocabulary development.

Abstract

This paper presents a theory of the syntactic aspects of human sentence production. An important characteristic of unprepared speech is that overt pronunciation of a sentence can be initiated before the speaker has completely worked out the meaning content he or she is going to express in that sentence. Apparently, the speaker is able to build up a syntactically coherent utterance out of a series of syntactic fragments each rendering a new part of the meaning content. This incremental, left-to-right mode of sentence production is the central capability of the proposed Incremental Procedural Grammar (IPG). Certain other properties of spontaneous speech, as derivable from speech errors, hesitations, self-repairs, and language pathology, are accounted for as well. The psychological plausibility thus gained by the grammar appears compatible with a satisfactory level of linguistic plausibility in that sentences receive structural descriptions which are in line with current theories of grammar. More importantly, an explanation for the existence of configurational conditions on transformations and other linguistics rules is proposed. The basic design feature of IPG which gives rise to these psychologically and linguistically desirable properties, is the “Procedures + Stack” concept. Sentences are built not by a central constructing agency which overlooks the whole process but by a team of syntactic procedures (modules) which work-in parallel-on small parts of the sentence, have only a limited overview, and whose sole communication channel is a stock. IPG covers object complement constructions, interrogatives, and word order in main and subordinate clauses. It handles unbounded dependencies, cross-serial dependencies and coordination phenomena such as gapping and conjunction reduction. It is also capable of generating self-repairs and elliptical answers to questions. IPG has been implemented as an incremental Dutch sentence generator written in LISP.

Abstract

[Seven one-page psycholinguistic sketches]