Volume 38, Issue 1-7, 2023

LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE（SSCI一区，2022 IF：2.3，排名：43/194）2023年第1-7期共发文58篇，内容以研究性论文为主，略涉书评，另附一期讨论错误驱动语言模型的特刊。论文内容主要涉及通过现有神经电生理技术（例如ERPs、Eye tracking、fMRI和MEG等）来探究正字法、语用原则、否定词、个体差异、语篇、语义、语音等语言问题，也涉及老龄化和专有名词研究。欢迎转发扩散！

往期推荐：

刊讯｜SSCI 期刊《语言、认知与神经科学》2022年第7期-第10期

刊讯｜SSCI 期刊《语言、认知与神经科学》2022年第3期-第6期

刊讯｜SSCI 期刊《语言、认知与神经科学》2022年第2期

目录

ARTICLES

Issue 1

■ No looking back: the effects of visual cues on the lexical boost in structural priming by Roger P.G. van Gompel, Laura J. Wakeford & Leila Kantola

■Individual differences in foreign language attrition: a 6-month longitudinal investigation after a study abroad by Anne Mickan, James M. McQueen, Laurel Brehm & Kristin Lemhöfer

■Cognitive features of indirect speech acts by Isabella P. Boux, Konstantina Margiotoudi, Felix R. Dreyer, Rosario Tomasello & Friedemann Pulvermüller

■ Using circles games to investigate the referential use of negation by Francesca Capuano, Carolin Dudschig & Barbara Kaup

■ The interactive support of cognitive reserve and semantic knowledge in proper name retrieval by Sonia Montemurro, Maria Montefinese, Martina Serena, Veronica Pucci, Sara Mondini & Carlo Semenza

■ERPs reveal how semantic and syntactic processing unfold across parafoveal and foveal vision during sentence comprehension by Chuchu Li, Katherine J. Midgley & Phillip J. Holcomb

■Syntactic comprehension priming and lexical boost effects in older adults by Willem S. van Boxtel & Laurel A. Lawyer

■Emotion, cognition and bilingualism: A commentary on Hinojosa, Moreno and Ferré (2019) by Humera Sharif & N. A. Malik

■ Letter rotations: through the magnifying glass and What evidence found there by María Fernández-López, Pablo Gómez & Manuel Perea

■ Conceptual retrieval for unique entities does not require proper names by Whitney Davidson, Brooke Boulais, Daniel Tranel & Amy M. Belfi

■ When facilitation becomes inhibition: effects of modality and lexicality on transposed-phoneme priming by Sophie Dufour, Jonathan Mirault & Jonathan Grainger

■ Word learning in the context of semantic prior knowledge: evidence of interference from feature-based neighbours in children and adults by Emma James, M. Gareth Gaskell, Gráinne Murphy, Josie Tulip & Lisa M. Henderson

■Speakers balance their use of cues to grammatical functions in informative discourse contexts by Thomas Hörberg & Johan Sjons

■ Orthographic precision for word naming in skilled readers by M. M. Elsherif, S. Frisson & L. R. Wheeldon

■ When exceptions matter: bilinguals regulate their dominant language to exploit structural constraints in sentence production by Christian A. Navarro-Torres, Paola E. Dussias & Judith F. Kroll

■The scalar meaning prediction in the processing of Spanish focus operators hasta and nada más by Fernanda Ortíz, Alberto Falcón & Asela Reig Alamillo

■Moving thoughts: emotion concepts from the perspective of context dependent embodied simulation by Piotr Winkielman et al.

Issue 3

■Entrainment to speech prosody influences subsequent sentence comprehension by Yulia Lamekina & Lars Meyer

■ What semantic errors restricted to either speaking or writing in aphasia tell us about lemmas by Ardi Roelofs

■ Morphophonological patterns influence regular and irregular past-tense production: evidence from aphasia by Stacey Rimikis, Adam Buchwald & Michele Miozzo

■ Global expectations mediate local constraint: evidence from concessive structures by Stephanie Rich & Jesse A. Harris

■Semantic focus mediates pitch auditory feedback control in phrasal prosody by Allison I. Hilger, Jennifer Cole & Charles Larson

■ Phonotactics and syntax: investigating functional specialisation during structured sequence processing by Friederike Seyfried & Julia Uddén

■Preverbal syntactic complexity leads to local coherence effects by Sakshi Bhatia & Samar Husain

■ Degree of incrementality is modulated by experimental context – ERP evidence from German quantifier restriction by Fabian Schlotterbeck, Petra Augurzky & Rolf Ulrich

■ Introduction to the special issue emergence of speech and language from prediction error: error-driven language models by Jessie S. Nixon & Fabian Tomaschek

■ The acquisition of speech categories: beyond perceptual narrowing, beyond unsupervised learning and beyond infancy by Bob McMurray

■ A discriminative account of the learning, representation and processing of inflection systems by Michael Ramscar

■ We probably sense sense probabilities by Dušica Filipović Đurđević & Aleksandar Kostić

■ A deep learning account of how language affects thought by Xiaoliang Luo, Nicholas J. Sexton & Bradley C. Love

■ LDL-AURIS: a computational model, grounded in error-driven learning, for the comprehension of single spoken words by Elnaz Shafaei-Bajestan, Masoumeh Moradipour-Tari, Peter Uhrig & R. Harald Baayen

■ Is structural priming between different languages a learning effect? Modelling priming as error-driven implicit learning by Yung Han Khoe, Chara Tsoukala, Gerrit Jan Kootstra & Stefan L. Frank

■ Effects of prediction error on episodic memory retrieval: evidence from sentence reading and word recognition by Katja I. Haeuser & Jutta Kray

■ Learning fast while avoiding spurious excitement and overcoming cue competition requires setting unachievable goals: reasons for using the logistic activation function in learning to predict categorical outcomes by Vsevolod Kapatsinski

■ Representing absence of evidence: why algorithms and representations matter in models of language and cognition by Franziska Bröker & Michael Ramscar

■Disruption of dynamic functional connectivity in children with developmental dyslexia by Yizhen Li, Junjun Li, Yang Yang & Hong-Yan Bi

■ Electrophysiological patterns of visual word recognition in deaf and hearing readers: an ERP mega-study by Kurt Winsler, Phillip J. Holcomb & Karen Emmorey

■Processing conventional and non-conventional multiword units: evidence of similarity-based generalisation from judgements and brain potentials by Manuel F. Pulido

■ Domain organisation emerges in cross-modal but not within-modal semantic feature integration by Gregory J. Smith & Chris McNorgan

■ “All mimsy were the borogoves” – a discriminative learning model of morphological knowledge in pseudo-word inflection by Jessica Nieder, Ruben van de Vijver & Fabian Tomaschek

■ The effect of input sensory modality on the multimodal encoding of motion events by Ezgi Mamus, Laura J. Speed, Aslı Özyürek & Asifa Majid

■ Wait long and prosper! Delaying production alleviates its detrimental effect on word learning by Efthymia C. Kapnoula & Arthur G. Samuel

■ Processing argument structure complexity in Basque-Spanish bilinguals by Pavlina Heinzova, Manuel Carreiras & Simona Mancini

■ Features matter: the role of number and gender features during the online processing of subject- and object- relative clauses in Italian by N. Biondo, E. Pagliarini, V. Moscati, L. Rizzi & A. Belletti

■ The influence of predictability, visual contrast, and preview validity on eye movements and N400 amplitude: co-registration evidence that the N400 reflects late processes by Jon Burnsky, Franziska Kretzschmar, Erika Mayer & Adrian Staub

■ Do structural priming and inverse preference effect demand cognitive resources? Evidence from structural priming in production by Xuemei Chen, Suiping Wang & Robert J. Hartsuiker

■Developmental consistency in the use of subphonemic information during real-time sentence processing by Erin Conwell, Gregor Horvath, Allyson Kuznia & Stephen J. Agauas

■Do readers misassign thematic roles? Evidence from a trailing boundary-change paradigm by Kiel Christianson, Jack Dempsey, Sarah-Elizabeth M. Deshaies, Anna Tsiola & Laura P. Valderrama

■ A test of letter configuration coding in visual word recognition by Joshua Snell, Matthew Simons & Leonie Warlo

Issue 7

■ The cortical dynamics of context-dependent language processing by Susanne Dietrich, Ingo Hertrich, Corinna Blum, Verena C. Seibold & Bettina Rolke

■ Testing the automaticity of syntax using masked visual priming by Elena Pyatigorskaya, Matteo Maran & Emiliano Zaccarella

■ Automated clustering and switching algorithms applied to semantic verbal fluency data in schizophrenia spectrum disorders by Chiara Barattieri di San Pietro, Claudio Luzzatti, Elisabetta Ferrari, Giovanni de Girolamo & Marco Marelli

■The activation of embedded (pseudo-)stems in auditory lexical processing: implications for models of spoken word recognition by Ava Creemers, Nattanun Chanchaochai, Meredith Tamminga & David Embick

■ Priming asymmetry persists in German-English-French trilinguals: the sense model modified for the trilingual mental lexicon by Xin Wang, Christina Steinman & Marcus Taft

■ Interference in quantifier float and subject-verb agreement by Hiroki Fujita & Ian Cunnings

■ Subjectivity predicts adjective ordering preferences in Hebrew, but lexical factors matter too by Nitzan Trainin & Einat Shetreet

■ Do two negatives make a positive? Language and logic in language processing by I-An Tan, Nitsan Kugler-Etinger & Yosef Grodzinsky

摘要

No looking back: the effects of visual cues on the lexical boost in structural priming

Roger P.G. van Gompel, School of Social Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK

Laura J. Wakeford, School of Social Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK

Leila Kantola, Department of Language Studies, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

Abstract Four structural priming experiments investigated the lexical boost effect in structural priming. In two experiments, we tested whether repeating the subject in prepositional object or double object ditransitive structures boosted structural priming. In two other experiments, we manipulated the repetition of the verb. Repetition of the subject noun affected structural priming, but only when the prime remained visible while participants produced the target sentence. In contrast, repetition of the verb boosted priming regardless of whether participants could see the prime and target simultaneously. We conclude that the subject noun repetition effect is more strategic in nature than the verb boost effect. Structures are automatically associated with the verb, their syntactic head, whereas repetition of the subject noun only affects priming if the presentation method makes the repetition highly explicit.

Key words Language production, syntactic representation, structural priming, lexical boost, syntactic head

Individual differences in foreign language attrition: a 6-month longitudinal investigation after a study abroad

Anne Mickana, James M. McQueen, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Laurel Brehmc, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Kristin Lemhöfera, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Abstract While recent laboratory studies suggest that the use of competing languages is a driving force in foreign language (FL) attrition (i.e. forgetting), research on “real” attriters has failed to demonstrate such a relationship. We addressed this issue in a large-scale longitudinal study, following German students throughout a study abroad in Spain and their first six months back in Germany. Monthly, percentage-based frequency of use measures enabled a fine-grained description of language use. L3 Spanish forgetting rates were indeed predicted by the quantity and quality of Spanish use, and correlated negatively with L1 German and positively with L2 English letter fluency. Attrition rates were furthermore influenced by prior Spanish proficiency, but not by motivation to maintain Spanish or non-verbal long-term memory capacity. Overall, this study highlights the importance of language use for FL retention and sheds light on the complex interplay between language use and other determinants of attrition.

Key words Foreign language attrition, language use, study abroad, individual differences, longitudinal study

Cognitive features of indirect speech acts

Isabella P. Bouxa, Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany;b Einstein Center for Neurosciences, Berlin, Germany;c Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Konstantina Margiotoudid, Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, UMR7290, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France;e Station de Primatologie CNRS-CELPHEDIA, Rousset-sur-Arc, France

Felix R. Dreyerf Medical School OWL - Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

Rosario Tomaselloa, Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Cluster of Excellence ‘Matters of Activity. Image Space Material’, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin,

Friedemann Pulvermüller, Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Abstract The offer of some cake can be declined by saying “I am on a diet” – an indirect reply. Here, we asked whether certain well-established psychological and conceptual features are linked to the (in)directness of speech acts – an issue unexplored so far. Subjects rated direct and indirect speech acts performed by the same critical linguistic forms in different dialogic contexts. We find that indirect replies were understood with less certainty, were less predictable by, less coherent with and less semantically similar to their context question. These effects were smaller when direct and indirect replies were matched for the type of speech acts for which they were used, compared to when they were not speech act matched. Crucially, all measured cognitive dimensions were strongly associated with each other. These findings suggest that indirectness goes hand-in-hand with a set of cognitive features, which should be taken into account when interpreting experimental findings, including neuroimaging studies of indirectness.

Key words Speech acts, indirect speech acts, pragmatics, implicature, politeness

Using circles games to investigate the referential use of negation

Francesca Capuano, Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Carolin Dudschig, Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Barbara Kaup, Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Abstract Studies on the spontaneous production of negation suggest that it can be modulated by pragmatic principles of successful communication such as informativity and relevance. The present study investigates whether negation production is additionally modulated by a more general principle of effort minimisation. In a series of circles games, subjects were presented with pairs of circles and asked to complete a sentence that would allow a listener to identify one of the two circles. Negation was only produced when an affirmative description for the circle at issue was harder, i.e. there was no simple intuitive way to describe the circle's pattern. The length of the concurrent descriptions did not strictly influence the production of negation. The results suggest that the use of negation becomes more frequent as the effort to produce it decreases with respect to a concurrent affirmation, even at the cost of greater informativity of affirmation.

Key words  Negation, pragmatics, language production, economy

The interactive support of cognitive reserve and semantic knowledge in proper name retrieval

Sonia Montemurro, IRCCS San Camillo Hospital, Venice, Italy

Maria Montefinese, IRCCS San Camillo Hospital, Venice, Italy

Martina Serena, Department of Neuroscience (Padova Neuroscience Centre, PNC), University of Padova, Padova, Italy

Veronica Pucci, Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, FISPPA, University of Padova, Padova, Italy

Sara Mondini, Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, FISPPA, University of Padova, Padova, Italy; Human Inspired Technology Research Centre, University of Padova, Padova, Italy

Carlo Semenza, Department of Neuroscience (Padova Neuroscience Centre, PNC), University of Padova, Padova, Italy

Abstract

Cognitive reserve (CR) refers to acquired experience that modulates resistance to physiological aging or brain damage. A relatively neglected issue is whether or not CR affects cognitive abilities equally. One relevant component of CR seems to be the richness of connections in semantic knowledge. We examined, in N = 66 healthy older adults, the potential influence of CR and semantic knowledge on the ability to retrieve proper names and common nouns. These two name categories have different semantic organisations, whereby proper names are characterised by a weaker semantic link to the information they refer to. Controlling for age, CR and semantic knowledge were linearly and positively associated with common noun retrieval. On the other hand, CR assisted proper name retrieval in older adults with a weaker semantic profile, while semantic knowledge assisted proper name retrieval in older adults with lower CR. This study contributes to define the cognitive underpinnings of CR.

Key words  Cognitive reserve, semantic, proper names, common nouns

ERPs reveal how semantic and syntactic processing unfold across parafoveal and foveal vision during sentence comprehension

Chuchu Li, Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA

Katherine J. Midgley, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

Phillip J. Holcomb, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

Abstract We examined how readers process content and function words in sentence comprehension with ERPs. Participants read simple declarative sentences using a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) with flankers paradigm. Sentences contained either an unexpected semantically anomalous content word, an unexpected syntactically anomalous function word or were well-formed with no anomalies. ERPs were examined when target words were in the parafoveal or foveal vision. Unexpected content words elicited a typically distributed N400 when displayed in the parafovea, followed by a longer-lasting, widely distributed positivity starting around 300 ms once foveated. Unexpected function words elicited a left lateralised LAN-like component when presented in the parafovea, followed by a left lateralised, posteriorly distributed P600 when foveated. These results suggested that both semantic and syntactic processing involve two stages – the initial, fast process that can be completed in parafovea, followed by a more in depth attentionally mediated assessment that occurs with direct attention.

Key words: Reading, ERPs, parafoveal and foveal processing, semantic and syntactic anomaly, N400, LAN, P600/LPC

Syntactic comprehension priming and lexical boost effects in older adults

Willem S. van Boxtel, Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

Laurel A. Lawyer, Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

Abstract The extent to which syntactic priming in comprehension is affected by ageing has not yet been extensively explored. It is further unclear whether syntactic comprehension priming persists across fillers in older adults. This study used a self-paced reading task and controlled for syntactic and lexical overlap, to (1) discover whether syntactic comprehension priming exists in older adults, across fillers, (2) to uncover potential differences between older and younger adults on priming measures, and (3) identify whether Working Memory or Processing Speed affect priming in older adults. Both older (n=30, Mage=68.6, SD=3.68) and Younger adults (n=30, Mage=21.6, SD=2.44) showed effects of syntactic priming and lexical boost. This suggests syntactic processing does not decline with age, and that abstract priming and the lexical boost are not dependent on residual activation or explicit retention in memory.

Key words Syntactic priming, aging, sentence processing, lexical boost, processing speed

Emotion, cognition and bilingualism: A commentary on Hinojosa, Moreno and Ferré (2019)

Humera Sharif, Department of English Language and Literature, The University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan

N. A. Malik, Department of English Language and Literature, The University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract The article comments on an infant research territory charted by Hinojosa et al. (2019) in Affective neurolinguistics: Towards a framework for reconciling language and emotion. Acknowledging the sprouting of affective neurolinguistics in the semantic and syntactic unification process, lexico-semantic and morphosyntactic and visual word and sentence processing domain, we expand on their thought to flesh out the aspect of bilingualism. Speakers of two or more languages are constantly fighting in receiving emotional input. One language may oust the other language to elicit the emotions, or bilinguals overthrow monolingual peers in perceiving emotion stimuli. This article claims that to amplify the significance of emotion-language intersection in the brain entirely, emotions should be studied in mono- and bilingual contexts.

Key words  Emotion, language, cognition, bilingualism

Letter rotations: through the magnifying glass and What evidence found there

María Fernández-López, Universitat de València, València, Spain

Pablo Gómez, California State University San Bernardino, Palm Desert, CA, USA  

Abstract Expert readers have a wide tolerance for distortions of the letters that make up a word. Nevertheless, the limits of this invariance are still under debate. To scrutinise this issue, we focused on a single parameter, letter rotation, as it serves to disentangle the predictions from neurally-inspired models of word recognition. Whereas the Local-Combination-Detector (LCD) model predicts invariance up to 45°, the SERIOL model predicts a linear cost until 60°. To test these predictions, Experiments 1 and 2 employed four rotation angles (0°, 22.5°, 45°, 67.5°) in lexical decision and semantic categorisation. The cost was minimal at 22.5°, sizeable at 45°, and considerably large at 67.5°. In Experiment 3, we focused on four moderate rotation angles (<45°). We found a gradual reading cost that increased at 45°. Thus, while there is a resilience limit around 45° favouring LCD, less steep angles also produce a reading cost, backing the SERIOL model.

Key words Rotation, letter detectors, orthographic processing, letter distortion, letter identity

Conceptual retrieval for unique entities does not require proper names

Whitney Davidson, Department of Psychology, Missouri Western State University, St. Joseph, MO, USA

Brooke Boulais, Department of Psychology, Roosevelt University, Chicago, IL, USA

Daniel Tranel, Departments of Neurology and Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

Amy M. Belfi, Department of Psychological Science, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO, USA

Abstract When asked to describe unique entities by providing specific, identifying information, people typically include proper names for other, related concepts (e.g. song titles when describing a musician). Here, we investigated whether proper names are necessary to accurately describe famous persons and places. Participants (healthy adults, N = 39) were shown names of famous persons or landmarks and asked to provide uniquely-identifying information about each, without using proper nouns. Their performance was compared to individuals who were unrestricted in proper noun use in this task. The current participants, who were prevented from using proper names, performed similarly to comparison participants who could use proper names. Additionally, the current participants performed significantly better than participants with damage to the left temporal pole (who have impaired proper noun retrieval due to their brain damage). These findings indicate that retrieval of proper nouns is not necessary to correctly identify and define semantically unique entities.

Key words Naming, concepts, recognition, anterior temporal lobe

When facilitation becomes inhibition: effects of modality and lexicality on transposed-phoneme priming

Sophie Dufour, Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, LPL, Aix-en-Provence, France;c Institute for Language, Communication, and the Brain, Aix-Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France

Jonathan Mirault, Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Aix-Marseille Université & CNRS, Marseille, France;d Pôle pilote AMPIRIC, Institut National Supérieur du Professorat et de l'Éducation (INSPÉ), Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France

Jonathan Grainger, Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Aix-Marseille Université & CNRS, Marseille, France;c Institute for Language, Communication, and the Brain, Aix-Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France

Abstract We examined the contributions of phoneme-to-word facilitation and word-to-word inhibition to transposed-phoneme priming effects under unimodal and cross-modal presentations. Experiments 1A and 1B showed that the presentation of an auditory prime formed by transposing two phonemes in a given target word facilitated lexical decisions to auditory targets. This facilitation was independent of the lexicality of the primes. In Experiment 2 the targets were presented visually rather than auditorily. We found an inhibitory priming effect, which, in contrast to Experiment 1, was influenced by the lexicality of the primes, with an effect emerging only with word primes. These findings point to a greater impact of phoneme-to-word facilitation under unimodal presentation and a greater role for word-to-word inhibition under cross-modal presentation. Hence, by simply manipulating the modality of target presentation, it is possible to separately probe two central mechanisms postulated in models of spoken word recognition, namely phoneme-to-word activation and lexical competition.

Key words Unimodal auditory priming, cross-modal priming, transposed-phoneme effects, lexical competition, phoneme-to-word activation

Word learning in the context of semantic prior knowledge: evidence of interference from feature-based neighbours in children and adults

Emma James, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

M. Gareth Gaskell, Department of Psychology, University of York, York, UK

Gráinne Murphy, Department of Psychology, University of York, York, UK

Josie Tulip, Department of Psychology, University of York, York, UK

Lisa M. Henderson, Department of Psychology, University of York, York, UK

Abstract The presence of phonological neighbours facilitates word-form learning, suggesting that prior phonological knowledge supports vocabulary acquisition. We tested whether prior semantic knowledge similarly benefits word learning by teaching 7-to-10-year-old children (Experiment 1) and adults (Experiment 2) pseudowords assigned to novel concepts with low or high semantic neighbourhood density according to feature norms. Form recall, definition recall, and semantic categorisation tasks were administered immediately after training, the next day, and one week later. Across sessions, pseudowords assigned to low-density (versus high-density) semantic neighbourhood concepts elicited better word-form recall (for adults) and better meaning recall (for children). Exploratory cross-experiment analyses demonstrated that the neighbourhood influence was most robust for recalling meanings. Children showed greater gains in form recall than adults across the week, regardless of links to semantic knowledge. While the results suggest that close semantic neighbours interfere with word learning, we consider alternative semantic dimensions that may be beneficial.

Key words Vocabulary, word learning, prior knowledge, semantic neighbourhood density, consolidation, development

Speakers balance their use of cues to grammatical functions in informative discourse contexts

Thomas Hörberg, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Johan Sjons, Department of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Abstract Grammatical encoding has been suggested to be driven by communicative efficiency  – a balance between production ease and communicative success. Evidence for this view comes from studies indicating that speakers balance their use of morphosyntactic cues to grammatical functions with respect to animacy. However, these studies have not taken cues in the discourse context into account. In a picture-description task, we investigate the influence of animacy on the morphosyntactic encoding of grammatical functions in Swedish transitive sentences. These sentences are produced in discourse contexts with additional information about grammatical functions. We find various morphosyntactic cues to grammatical functions (e.g. SVO word order and case marking) to more frequently be used when the object referent is animate. Speakers thus balance their use of cues to grammatical functions, even when the discourse context is informative about those functions. These findings provide direct evidence for the view that grammatical encoding is influenced by communicative efficiency.

Key words Grammatical encoding, grammatical functions, communicative efficiency, Swedish

Orthographic precision for word naming in skilled readers

M. M. Elsherif, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

S. Frisson, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

L. R. Wheeldon, Department of Foreign Languages and Translation, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

Abstract Perfetti (2007) proposed that the quality of lexical representations affects reading. We investigated the role of lexical quality in decoding. Eighty-four adults read aloud words and pseudowords with dense and sparse neighbourhoods in a masked form-priming experiment. Individual-difference measures of language and cognitive processes were collected and entered into a principal component analysis (PCA). Compared to a non-overlapping control prime, we observed greater facilitatory form-priming for word targets with sparse neighbourhoods than those with dense neighbourhoods. A PCA component related to orthographic precision affected form-priming: people with low orthographic precision showed greater facilitation for words with sparse neighbourhoods, primed by pseudowords, than those with dense neighbourhoods. People with high orthographic precision demonstrated the converse, only when primed by words. For pseudoword reading, word primes facilitated more than pseudoword primes in people with low orthographic precision. People with high orthographic precision showed the opposite pattern.

Key words Lexical quality hypothesis, visual word naming, individual differences, orthographic precision, masked priming

When exceptions matter: bilinguals regulate their dominant language to exploit structural constraints in sentence production

Christian A. Navarro-Torres, Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

Paola E. Dussias, Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA; Center for Language Science, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA

Judith F. Kroll, School of Education, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

Abstract What we say generally follows distributional regularities, such as learning to avoid “the asleep dog” because we hear “the dog that’s asleep” in its place. However, not everyone follows such regularities. We report data on English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals to examine how working memory mediates variation in a-adjective usage (asleep, afraid), which, unlike typical adjectives (sleepy, frightened), tend to resist attributive use. We replicate previous work documenting this tendency in a sentence production task. Critically, for all speakers, the tendency to use a-adjectives attributively or non-attributively was modulated by individual differences in working memory. But for bilinguals, a-adjective use was additionally modulated by an interaction between working memory and category fluency in the dominant language (English), revealing an interactive role of domain-general and language-related mechanisms that enable regulation of competing (i.e. attributive and non-attributive) alternatives. These results show how bilingualism reveals fundamental variation in language use, memory, and attention.

Key words Sentence production, bilingualism, mind individual differences, working memory, category fluency

The scalar meaning prediction in the processing of Spanish focus operators hasta and nada más

Fernanda Ortíz, Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Cognitivas, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, México

Alberto Falcón, Facultad de Comunicación Humana, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, México

Asela Reig Alamillo, Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Cognitivas, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, México

Abstract Connectives have been shown to confirm or reverse the prediction of upcoming discourse content. Whether the non-conceptual meaning of other types of discourse markers can further constraint the upcoming discourse remains mostly unexplored. This study evaluates the predicting effect of two scalar focus operators, Spanish hasta (even) and nada más (only). In a visual-world paradigm experiment, participants heard sentences that included either one of the scalar focus operators that guided the prediction of one of four simultaneously displayed images. Results showed that the utterance of the focus operators triggered anticipation of the corresponding visual element according to a higher or lower position of the scale. Also, looking times suggest different processing demands for each of the focus operators. These results shed light on the way non-conceptual meaning contributes to building expectations about upcoming discourse, and provide evidence of the scalar organisation of elements in the shared discourse knowledge.

Key words Focus operator, prediction, discourse markers processing, scalar meaning, linguistic preactivation

Entrainment to speech prosody influences subsequent sentence comprehension

Yulia Lamekina, Max Planck Research Group Language Cycles, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany

Lars Meyer, Max Planck Research Group Language Cycles, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany;b Clinic for Phoniatrics and Pedaudiology, University Hospital Münster, Münster, Germany

Abstract Speech processing is subserved by neural oscillations. Through a mechanism termed entrainment, oscillations can maintain speech rhythms beyond speech offset. We here tested whether entrainment affects higher-level language comprehension. We conducted four online experiments on 80 participants each. Our paradigm combined acoustic entrainment to repetitive prosodic contours with subsequent visual presentation of ambiguous target sentences (e.g. “Max sees Tom and Karl laughs”). We aimed to elicit faulty segmentations through the duration of the preceding contour (e.g. the segment “Max sees Tom and Karl” leads to an error at “laughs”). Across experiments, self-paced reading data showed that participants employed the duration of the initial prosodic contour to predict the duration of the upcoming segments. Prosody entrainment may thus serve a predictive function during language comprehension, not only helping the reader to segment the current speech input, but also inducing temporal predictions about upcoming segments.

Key words Auditory perception, language, rhythm, prosody, psycholinguistics

What semantic errors restricted to either speaking or writing in aphasia tell us about lemmas

Ardi Roelofs, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Abstract Theories about word production differ in whether they assume that lexical selection involves modality-specific representations or modality-neutral ones, called lemmas. The observation that semantic errors in aphasia may be restricted to either speaking or writing has long been taken to challenge lemma models (Hillis et al., 1999; Kemmerer, 2015, 2019). Whereas patients RGB, HW, and RR make semantic errors in speaking but not in writing, patient RCM exhibits the opposite dissociation. Here, using WEAVER++ simulations and a simple mathematical analysis, a model with lemmas is shown to account for the double dissociation observed in patients. In particular, the model captures the patterns of performance of the patients on vocal picture naming, written picture naming, auditory word comprehension, and writing to dictation, explaining 98% of the variance. The challenge is now for modality-specific models to account for the findings that the lemma model was designed to explain in the first place.

Key words Aphasia, modeling, semantic errors, speaking, writing

Morphophonological patterns influence regular and irregular past-tense production: evidence from aphasia

Stacey Rimikis, Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Adam Buchwald, Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Michele Miozzo, Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

Abstract Previous work has demonstrated that the distribution of morphophonological patterns in the lexicon influences how unimpaired speakers inflect novel nonwords (Albright & Hayes [2003]. Rules vs. Analogy in English past tenses: A computational/experimental study. Cognition, 90(2), 119–161). Here, we investigated whether morphophonological patterns impact the language production of a group of individuals with acquired language impairment (n = 16). Using a past-tense production task, we found that both accuracy and error patterns were impacted by the distribution of morphophonological patterns. Participants were more accurate producing regular verbs when more phonologically similar verbs also take the regularised past tense form. Additionally, regularisation errors for irregular verbs (e.g. runned) occurred more frequently when the regularised form occurred more in phonologically similar verbs. These effects occurred across and within allomorphic subgroups of the regular past tense (i.e. stem+/t/, stem+/d/, stem+/əd/). Taken together, these results indicate that speakers are sensitive to the distribution of morphophonological patterns in the language at a high degree of granularity.

Key words morphology, phonology, morphophonology, aphasia, production

Global expectations mediate local constraint: evidence from concessive structures

Stephanie Rich, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

Jesse A. Harris, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Abstract Numerous studies have found facilitation for lexical processing in highly constraining contexts. However, less is known about cases in which immediately preceding (local) and broader (global) contextual constraint conflict. In two eye-tracking while reading experiments, local and global context were manipulated independently, creating a critical condition where local context biases towards a word that is incongruent with global context. Global context consisted of a clause introduced by a concessive marker generating broad expectations about upcoming material. Experiment 1 compared high- and low-predictability critical words, whereas Experiment 2 held the critical word constant and manipulated the preceding verb to impose different levels of local constraint. Facilitation from local context was reduced when it was incongruent with global context, supporting models in which information from global and local context is rapidly integrated during early lexical processing over models that would initially prioritise only local or only global context.

Key words Concessive structures, contextual constraint, prediction, eye-tracking while reading

Semantic focus mediates pitch auditory feedback control in phrasal prosody

Allison I. Hilger, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States; Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States

Jennifer Cole, Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States

Charles Larson, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States

Abstract This study investigated the effect of semantic focus on pitch auditory feedback control in the production of phrasal prosody through an experiment using pitch-shifted auditory feedback. We hypothesized that pitch-shift responses would be mediated by semantic focus because highly informative focus types, such as corrective focus, impose more specific constraints on the prosodic form of a phrase and require greater consistency in the production of pitch excursions compared to sentences with no such focus elements. Twenty-eight participants produced sentences with and without corrective focus while their auditory feedback was briefly and unexpectedly perturbed in pitch by +/−200 cents at the start of the sentence. The magnitude and latency of the reflexive pitch-shift responses were measured as a reflection of auditory feedback control. Our results matched our prediction that corrective focus would elicit larger pitch-shift responses, supporting our hypothesis that auditory feedback control is mediated by semantic focus.

Key words Prosody, auditory feedback, pitch shifts, feedback perturbations, intonation, semantic focus

Phonotactics and syntax: investigating functional specialisation during structured sequence processing

Friederike Seyfried, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Brain, Language and Computation Lab, Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA

Julia Uddén, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Max-Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Department of Linguistic, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract Frontal lobe organisation displays a functional gradient, with overarching processing goals located in parts anterior to more subordinate goals, processed more posteriorly. Functional specialisation for syntax and phonology within language relevant areas has been supported by meta-analyses and reviews, but never directly tested experimentally. We tested for organised functional specialisation by manipulating syntactic case and phonotactics, creating violations at the end of otherwise matched and predictable sentences. Both violations led to increased activation in expected language regions. We observe the clearest signs of a functional gradient for language processing in the medial frontal cortex, where syntactic violations activated a more anterior portion compared to the phonotactic violations. A large overlap of syntactic and phonotactic processing in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) supports the view that general structured sequence processes are located in this area. These findings are relevant for understanding how sentence processing is implemented in hierarchically organised processing steps in the frontal lobe.

Key words Left inferior frontal gyrus, functional specialisation, phonotactics, syntax, fMRI

Preverbal syntactic complexity leads to local coherence effects

Sakshi Bhatia, Department of Linguistics, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

Samar Husain, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India

Abstract The effective use of preverbal linguistic cues to make successful clause-final verbal prediction as well as robust maintenance of such predictions has been argued to be a cross-linguistic generalisation for SOV languages such as German and Japanese. In this paper, we show that native speakers of Hindi (an SOV language) falter in forming a clause-final structure in the presence of a centre-embedded relative clause with a non-canonical word order. In particular, the fallibility of the parser is illustrated by the formation of a grammatically illicit locally coherent parse during online processing. Such a parse should not be formed if the grammatically licit matrix clause final structure was being successfully formed. The formation of a locally coherent parse is further illustrated by probing various syntactic dependencies via targeted questions. We show that the parser's susceptibility to form such structures is not driven by top-down processing, rather the effect can only be explained through a bottom-up parsing approach. Further, our investigation suggests that while plausibility is essential, presence of overt agreement features might not be necessary for forming a locally coherent parse in Hindi. These results go against top-down proposals to local coherence such as lossy surprisal and are consistent with the good-enough processing model to comprehension while only partially supporting the SOPARSE account. The work highlights how top-down processing and bottom-up information interact during sentence comprehension in SOV languages – prediction suffers with increased complexity of the preverbal linguistic environment.

Key words  Local coherence effects, syntactic prediction, good-enough processing, sentence comprehension, SOV languages

Degree of incrementality is modulated by experimental context – ERP evidence from German quantifier restriction

Fabian Schlotterbeck, Department of Modern Languages, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Petra Augurzky, Department of Linguistics, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany

Rolf Ulrich, Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Abstract The current ERP study investigates the role of non-linguistic context in incremental semantic comprehension. Using picture-sentence verification, we examined the neurophysiological correlates of contextual adaptation effects. We manipulated experiment-inherent frequency and tested whether a relatively high ratio of experimental to filler sentences constrains the contextual restriction of the German quantifier alle (“all”). While previous results indicate that the truth evaluation may be postponed when the experimental setting is completely ambiguous with respect to a potentially following restriction, the current study used a higher ratio of non-restricted vs. restricted sentences than the previous one (4:1 vs. 1:1) and thereby tested whether a low restriction probability increases the likelihood of an immediate truth evaluation. Our results show that experiment-inherent frequency distributions immediately modulate the N400 amplitude, analogous to previous studies on speaker reliability.

Key words Language comprehension, compositional-semantic processing, event-related potentials, adaptation effects, N400

Introduction to the special issue emergence of speech and language from prediction error: error-driven language models

Jessie S. Nixon, Quantitive Linguistics, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tubingen, Germany

Fabian Tomaschek, Quantitive Linguistics, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tubingen, Germany

Abstract The prosodic word (PW) has been proposed as a planning unit in speech production (Levelt et al. [1999. A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 1–75]), supported by evidence that speech initiation time (RT) is faster for Dutch utterances with fewer PWs due to cliticisation (with the number of lexical words and syllables kept constant) (Wheeldon & Lahiri [1997. Prosodic units in speech production. Journal of Memory and Language, 37(3), 356–381. https://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.1997.2517], W&L). The present study examined prosodic cliticisation (and resulting RT) for a different set of potential clitics (articles, direct-object pronouns), in English, using a different response task (immediate reading aloud). W&L’s result of shorter RTs for fewer PWs was replicated for articles, but not for pronouns, suggesting a difference in cliticisation for these two function word types. However, a post-hoc analysis of the duration of the verb preceding the clitic suggests that both are cliticised. These findings highlight the importance of supplementing production latency measures with phonetic duration measures to understand different stages of language production during utterance planning.

Key words Prosodic word, prosodic clitics, clitic type, prosodic planning, syntactic planning

The acquisition of speech categories: beyond perceptual narrowing, beyond unsupervised learning and beyond infancy

Bob McMurray, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; Department of Linguistics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, USA

Abstract An early achievement in language is carving a variable acoustic space into categories. The canonical story is that infants accomplish this by the second year, when only unsupervised learning is plausible. I challenge this view, synthesising five lines of developmental, phonetic and computational work. First, unsupervised learning may be insufficient given the statistics of speech (including infant-directed). Second, evidence that infants “have” speech categories rests on tenuous methodological assumptions. Third, the fact that the ecology of the learning environment is unsupervised does not rule out more powerful error driven learning mechanisms. Fourth, several implicit supervisory signals are available to older infants. Finally, development is protracted through adolescence, enabling richer avenues for development. Infancy may be a time of organising the auditory space, but true categorisation only arises via complex developmental cascades later in life. This has implications for critical periods, second language acquisition, and our basic framing of speech perception.

Key words  Speech perception, speech categorization, infancy, category learning, development, language development, unsupervised learning, statistical learning

A discriminative account of the learning, representation and processing of inflection systems

Michael Ramscar, Department of Quantitative Linguistics, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Abstract What kind of knowledge accounts for linguistic productivity? How is it acquired? For years, debate on these questions has focused on a seemingly obscure domain: inflectional morphology. On one side, theorists inspired by Rumelhart & McClelland’s classic error-driven learning model have sought to show how all morphological forms are the products of a single memory-based process, whereas the opposing theories have claimed that irregular forms are processed by qualitatively different mechanisms to rule-governed regulars. This review argues that while the main ideas put forward by Rumelhart & McClelland – that inflectional patterns are learned, and rule-like behaviour emerges from the distribution of forms – appear to be correct, the theory embodied in their model (and those following it) is incompatible with the discriminative nature of learning itself. An examination of the constraints error-driven learning mechanisms impose on theories of morphological processing – along with language learning and human communication itself – is presented.

Key words  Error-driven learning, language learning, inflectional morphology, linguistic productivity‌, computational modelling

We probably sense sense probabilities

Dušica Filipović Đurđević, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia; Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia; Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia

Aleksandar Kostić, Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

Abstract In this paper, we demonstrate the effects of Information Theory measures on the processing of polysemous nouns and reveal that the sensitivity to multiple related senses can be learned from the linguistic context. We collected large-scale data and applied a correlation design to show that an increase in sense uncertainty (or sense diversity) is followed by a faster visual lexical decision. The facilitatory effect of sense uncertainty was revealed by the predictive power of entropy, followed by the additional analysis, which revealed that both the number of senses and the balance of sense probabilities affected processing. For the first time, the balance of sense probabilities was described via redundancy to demonstrate the effect of the numerical description of the balance of sense probabilities. Finally, we crossed distribution semantics and discrimination learning to show that polysemy effects can arise as a consequence of the principles of error-driven learning.

Key words entropy, lexical ambiguity, naïve discrimination learning, the number of senses, polysemy, redundancy, visual lexical decision

A deep learning account of how language affects thought

Xiaoliang Luo, Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK

Nicholas J. Sexton, Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK

Bradley C. Love, Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK;b The Alan Turing Institute, London, UK

Abstract How can words shape meaning? Shared labels highlight commonalities between concepts whereas contrasting labels make differences apparent. To address such findings, we propose a deep learning account that spans perception to decision (i.e. labelling). The model takes photographs as input, transforms them to semantic representations through computations that parallel the ventral visual stream, and finally determines the appropriate linguistic label. The underlying theory is that minimising error on two prediction tasks (predicting the meaning and label of a stimulus) requires a compromise in the network's semantic representations. Thus, differences in label use, whether across languages or levels of expertise, manifest in differences in the semantic representations that support label discrimination. We confirm these predictions in simulations involving fine-grained and coarse-grained labels. We hope these and allied efforts which model perception, semantics, and labelling at scale will advance developmental and neurocomputational accounts of concept and language learning.

Key words deep learning, word learning, language and thought, semantic representation,Whorfian hypothesis‌

LDL-AURIS: a computational model, grounded in error-driven learning, for the comprehension of single spoken words

Elnaz Shafaei-Bajestan, Quantitative Linguistics, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Masoumeh Moradipour-Tari, Quantitative Linguistics, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Peter Uhrig, English Linguistics, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany

R. Harald Baayen, Quantitative Linguistics, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Abstract A computational model for the comprehension of single spoken words is presented that builds on an earlier model using discriminative learning. Real-valued features are extracted from the speech signal instead of discrete features. Vectors representing word meanings using one-hot encoding are replaced by real-valued semantic vectors. Instead of incremental learning with Rescorla-Wagner updating, we use linear discriminative learning, which captures incremental learning at the limit of experience. These new design features substantially improve prediction accuracy for unseen words, and provide enhanced temporal granularity, enabling the modelling of cohort-like effects. Visualisation with t-SNE shows that the acoustic form space captures phone-like properties. Trained on 9 h of audio from a broadcast news corpus, the model achieves recognition performance that approximates the lower bound of human accuracy in isolated word recognition tasks. LDL-AURIS thus provides a mathematically-simple yet powerful characterisation of the comprehension of single words as found in English spontaneous speech.

Key words  Spoken word recognition, error-driven learning, Widrow-Hoff learning rule, naive discriminative learning, linear discriminative learning

Is structural priming between different languages a learning effect? Modelling priming as error-driven implicit learning

Yung Han Khoe, Centre for Language Studies (CLS), Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Chara Tsoukala, Centre for Language Studies (CLS), Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Gerrit Jan Kootstra, Centre for Language Studies (CLS), Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Stefan L. Frank, Centre for Language Studies (CLS), Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Abstract To test whether error-driven implicit learning can explain cross-language structural priming, we implemented three different models of bilingual sentence production: Spanish-English, verb-final Dutch-English, and verb-medial Dutch-English. With these models, we conducted simulation experiments that all revealed clear and strong cross-language priming effects. One of these experiments included structures with different word order between the two languages. This enabled us to distinguish between the error-driven learning account of structural priming and an alternative hybrid account which predicts that identical word order is required for cross-language priming. Cross-language priming did occur in our model between structures with different word order. This is in line with results from behavioural experiments. The results of the three experiments reveal varying degrees of evidence for stronger within-language priming than cross-language priming. This is consistent with results from behavioural studies. Overall, our findings support the viability of error-driven implicit learning as an account of cross-language structural priming.

Key words Cross-language structural priming, error-driven implicit learning, multilingualism, sentence production, dual-path model

Effects of prediction error on episodic memory retrieval: evidence from sentence reading and word recognition

Katja I. Haeuser, Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany;b CRC Information Density and Linguistic Encoding, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

Jutta Kray, Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany;b CRC Information Density and Linguistic Encoding, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

Abstract Prediction facilitates word processing in the moment, but the longer-term consequences of prediction remain unclear. We investigated whether prediction error during language encoding enhances memory for words later on. German-speaking participants read sentences in which the gender marking of the pre-nominal article was consistent or inconsistent with the predictable noun. During subsequent word recognition, we probed participants’ recognition memory for predictable and unpredictable nouns. Our results indicate that individuals who demonstrated early prediction error during sentence reading, showed enhanced recognition memory for nouns overall. Results from an exploratory step-wise regression showed that prenominal prediction error and general reading speed were the best proxies for recognition memory. Hence, prediction error may facilitate recognition by furnishing memory traces built during initial reading of the sentences. Results are discussed in the light of hypotheses positing that predictable words show a memory disadvantage because they are processed less thoroughly.

Key words Prediction errors, sentence comprehension, reading, memory, recognition

Learning fast while avoiding spurious excitement and overcoming cue competition requires setting unachievable goals: reasons for using the logistic activation function in learning to predict categorical outcomes

Vsevolod Kapatsinski, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

Abstract Language learning often involves predicting categorical outcomes based on a set of cues. Error in predicting a categorical outcome is the difference between zero or one and the outcome’s current level of activation. The current activation level of a categorical outcome is argued to be a non-linear, logistic function of activation the outcome receives from the cues. Crucially, the logistic activation function asymptotically approaches zero and one without ever reaching or overshooting them. This allows error-driven learning to avoid settling on spurious associations between cues and outcomes that never co-occur (“spurious excitement”). In an artificial language experiment, humans are also not observed to show spurious excitement. The logistic activation function is compared to alternative solutions to spurious excitement, and shown to have important advantages. It enables one-shot learning and steep, S-shaped learning curves, and explains why cue competition in language learning can be overcome with additional training.

Key words Rescorla­-Wagner model, language acquisition, perception, logistic activation function, cue competition, blocking, overshadowing

Representing absence of evidence: why algorithms and representations matter in models of language and cognition

Franziska Bröker, Department for Computational Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany; Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London, London, UK

Michael Ramscar, Quantitative Linguistics, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Abstract Theories of language and cognition develop iteratively from ideas, experiments and models. The abstract nature of “cognitive processes” means that computational models play a critical role in this, yet bridging the gaps between models, data, and interpretations is challenging. While the how and why computations are performed is often the primary research focus, the conclusions drawn from models can be compromised by the representations chosen for them. To illustrate this point, we revisit a set of empirical studies of language acquisition that appear to support different models of learning from implicit negative evidence. We examine the degree to which these conclusions were influenced by the representations chosen and show how a plausible single mechanism account of the data can be formulated for representations that faithfully capture the task design. The need for input representations to be incorporated into model conceptualisations, evaluations, and comparisons is discussed.

Key words Computational modelling, representations, error-driven learning, language acquisition, negative evidence

Disruption of dynamic functional connectivity in children with developmental dyslexia 

Yizhen Li, Junjun Li, Yang Yang, Hong-Yan Bi, CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Center for Brain Science and Learning Difficulties, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China;b Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

Abstract Developmental dyslexia (DD) is the most common learning disorder. The alternations of intrinsic functional connectivity (FC) have been frequently reported to be associated with DD. However, previous research has predominately focused on static FC features. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a sliding time window approach, this study examined dynamic FC during rest in 22 children with DD and 38 age-matched controls. Results showed that compared to controls, dyslexic children exhibited increased temporal variability of FC in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Moreover, the higher dynamics of FC was correlated with poorer reading performance, confirming the role of atypical dynamic FC in DD. We found that the altered dynamic FC in dyslexics was associated with problematic regional activity and functional-structural coupling. This study for the first time reveals the aberrant dynamic FC in a pivotal language region, providing novel insights into the neural signature of DD. 

Key words Developmental dyslexia, resting-state fMRI, dynamic functional connectivity, temporal variability

Electrophysiological patterns of visual word recognition in deaf and hearing readers: an ERP mega-study 

Kurt Winsler, Department of Psychology, University of California – Davis, Davis, CA, USA

Phillip J. Holcomb, Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

Karen Emmorey, School of Speech, Language and Hearing Science, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

Abstract Deaf and hearing readers have different access to spoken phonology which may affect the representation and recognition of written words. We used ERPs to investigate how a matched sample of deaf and hearing adults (total n = 90) responded to lexical characteristics of 480 English words in a go/no-go lexical decision task. Results from mixed effect regression models showed (a) visual complexity produced small effects in opposing directions for deaf and hearing readers, (b) similar frequency effects, but shifted earlier for deaf readers, (c) more pronounced effects of orthographic neighbourhood density for hearing readers, and (d) more pronounced effects of concreteness for deaf readers. We suggest hearing readers have visual word representations that are more integrated with phonological representations, leading to larger lexically-mediated effects of neighbourhood density. Conversely, deaf readers weight other sources of information more heavily, leading to larger semantically-mediated effects and altered responses to low-level visual variables. 

Key words Deafness, neighbourhood density, concreteness, event-related potentials

Processing conventional and non-conventional multiword units: evidence of similarity-based generalisation from judgements and brain potentials  

Manuel F. Pulido, Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

Abstract Language is constantly evolving through speakers’ natural innovations. However, our understanding of how subtle linguistic innovations are processed is still surprisingly limited. To date, most studies investigating processing of non-conventional language have focused on metaphors. Using both brain event-related potentials (ERPs) and offline judgements, the present study investigated the acceptability, as well as the temporal dynamics, associated with processing novel and conventional multiword units. By manipulating both the degree of similarity and degree of conventionality, the results revealed that the acceptability of novel items hinges on their similarity to known multiword units. ERPs revealed that similarity modulated a late positive component (LPC) 550–750 ms after stimulus presentation; this LPC was significantly correlated with acceptability. Additionally, processing of novel multiword units was not modulated by exposure to related multiword units, indicating that similarity-based processing was not dependent on recent prior exposure. 

Key words Processing multiword units, collocations, ERPs, analogy, similarity, generalisation/generalization

Domain organisation emerges in cross-modal but not within-modal semantic feature integration

Gregory J. Smith, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA

Chris McNorgan, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA

Abstract A large body of literature supports theories positing a distributed, perceptually grounded semantic memory system. Prominent models have assumed distributed features are integrated into networks using either shallow or deep hierarchies. Previous behavioural tests of modality effects in shallow and deep hierarchies inspired by, but not implemented in, connectionist models support deep hierarchy architectures. We behaviourally replicate and model speeded dual feature verification in a sample of general-purpose modality-specific computational models of semantic memory trained on feature production norms for 541 concepts. The cross-modal advantage in semantic processing shown behaviourally and in simulations supports hierarchically organised distributed models of semantic memory and provides novel insight into the division of labour in these models. Analyses of the emergent model structure suggest animacy distinctions arise from the self-organisation of statistical co-occurrences among multisensory features but weakly among unisensory features. These findings suggest a privileged role of the multisensory convergence area for category representation. 

Key words Semantic memory, multisensory representations, computational model, anterior temporal lobe‌, connectivity

“All mimsy were the borogoves” – a discriminative learning model of morphological knowledge in pseudo-word inflection 

Jessica Nieder, Department of General Linguistics, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

Ruben van de Vijver, Department of General Linguistics, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

Fabian Tomaschek, Department of General Linguistics, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Abstract Grammatical knowledge has often been investigated in wug tests, in which participants inflect pseudo-words. It was argued that in inflecting these pseudo-words, speakers apply their knowledge of word formation. However, it remains unclear what exactly this knowledge is and how it is learned. According to one theory, the knowledge is best characterised as abstractions that specify how units are combined. Another theory maintains that it is best characterised by memory-based analogy. In both cases the knowledge is learned by association based on positive evidence alone. In this paper, we model the classification of pseudo-words to Maltese plurals using a shallow neural network trained with an error-driven learning algorithm. We demonstrate that the classifications mirror those of Maltese speakers in a wug test. Our results indicate that speakers rely on gradient knowledge of a relation between the phonetics of whole words and plural classes, which is learned in an error-driven way. 

Key words  Discriminative learning, wug test, computational modelling, Maltese plurals, production

The effect of input sensory modality on the multimodal encoding of motion events

Ezgi Mamus, Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Laura J. Speed, Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Aslı Özyürek, Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Donders Centre for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Asifa Majid, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Abstract Each sensory modality has different affordances: vision has higher spatial acuity than audition, whereas audition has better temporal acuity. This may have consequences for the encoding of events and its subsequent multimodal language production—an issue that has received relatively little attention to date. In this study, we compared motion events presented as audio-only, visual-only, or multimodal (visual + audio) input and measured speech and co-speech gesture depicting path and manner of motion in Turkish. Input modality affected speech production. Speakers with audio-only input produced more path descriptions and fewer manner descriptions in speech compared to speakers who received visual input. In contrast, the type and frequency of gestures did not change across conditions. Path-only gestures dominated throughout. Our results suggest that while speech is more susceptible to auditory vs. visual input in encoding aspects of motion events, gesture is less sensitive to such differences.

Key words Motion events, iconic gestures, visual perception, auditory perception, spatial language

Wait long and prosper! Delaying production alleviates its detrimental effect on word learning 

Efthymia C. Kapnoula, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastián, Spain;b Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain

Arthur G. Samuel, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastián, Spain; Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain; Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, New York, NY, USA

Abstract Recent work by Baese-Berk and Samuel (Baese-Berk, M. M., & Samuel, A. G. (2022). Just give it time: Differential effects of disruption and delay on perceptual learning. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 84(3), 960–980.) suggests that immediate – but not delayed – production has a detrimental effect on learning a non-native speech sound contrast. We tested whether this pattern is also found for word learning. Each participant learned 12 new words in one of four training conditions: Perception-Only, Immediate-Production, 2-seconds-Delayed-Production, and 4-seconds-Delayed-Production. At test, we assessed how well new words were embedded into the mental lexicon by measuring the degree to which they could drive phonemic recalibration (also called “perceptual learning”). Training and testing were repeated on the next day along with a word recognition task assessing lexical configuration. Replicating previous findings, Day 1 results showed that repeating a new word immediately after hearing it disrupted learning compared to just hearing it. Critically, in line with our prediction, this negative effect disappeared when a 4-second pause was inserted between hearing and producing each word. 

Key words Word learning, production, spoken word recognition, mental lexicon

Processing argument structure complexity in Basque-Spanish bilinguals 

Pavlina Heinzova, Manuel Carreiras, Simona Mancini, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain

Abstract Previous research on argument structure (AS) has shown that verb processing costs scale with the number of arguments and as a result of non-canonical thematic mapping. The Basque language has unique AS: Basque unergatives and transitives select transitive auxiliary and ergative subject case markings, while unaccusatives are syntactically less complex. We studied the contribution of these syntactic factors in seventy-one, simultaneous Basque-Spanish bilinguals, measuring their performance on unergative, unaccusatives, and transitive verbs in a lexical decision and a sentence production task. We observed no differences between verb groups in the lexical decision task. In the production task, Basque unergatives elicited more ungrammatical sentences, while Spanish unaccusatives, in line with previous findings, elicited longer speech onset times. Our results indicate that AS processing can differ across languages, calling for further cross-linguistic investigation. 

Key words  Argument structure processing, sentence production, lexical decision, cross-language differences, Basque-Spanish bilinguals‌

Abstract representations in temporal cortex support generative linguistic processing

David W. Gow Jr., Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychology, Salem State University, Salem, MA, USA; Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Division of Medical Sciences, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, USA

Enes Avcu, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

Adriana Schoenhaut, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

David O. Sorensen, Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Division of Medical Sciences, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, USA

Seppo P. Ahlfors, Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Division of Medical Sciences, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, USA; Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, USA

Abstract Generativity, the ability to create and evaluate novel constructions, is a fundamental property of human language and cognition. The productivity of generative processes is determined by the scope of the representations they engage. Here we examine the neural representation of reduplication, a productive phonological process that can create novel forms through patterned syllable copying (e.g. ba-mih → ba-ba-mih, ba-mih-mih, or ba-mih-ba). Using MRI-constrained source estimates of combined MEG/EEG data collected during an auditory artificial grammar task, we identified localised cortical activity associated with syllable reduplication pattern contrasts in novel trisyllabic nonwords. Neural decoding analyses identified a set of predominantly right hemisphere temporal lobe regions whose activity reliably discriminated reduplication patterns evoked by untrained, novel stimuli. Effective connectivity analyses suggested that sensitivity to abstracted reduplication patterns was propagated between these temporal regions. These results suggest that localised temporal lobe activity patterns function as abstract representations that support linguistic generativity. 

Key words neural decoding, effective connectivity, representation, magnetoencephalography, phonology

Presentation format affects the behavioural and neural processing costs of sentence reinterpretation 

Lena M. Blott, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Jennifer M. Rodd, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Jane E. Warren, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Abstract Although listening to speech and reading text rely on different lower-order cognitive and neural processes, much of the literature on higher-order comprehension assumes engagement of a common conceptual-semantic system which is unaffected by input modality. However, few studies have tested this assumption directly. Moreover, many neuroimaging studies of reading present sentences in an artificial, cognitively demanding word-by-word rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) format. We report behavioural and fMRI experiments investigating whether presentation format (Spoken, Written, or RSVP) modulates commonly reported behavioural and neural costs associated with reinterpretation of sentences that contain lexical ambiguities. Reinterpretation-related processing costs were exaggerated in the RSVP format, both for response times on a behavioural task and neural activation in left inferior frontal gyrus. Presentation format can interact with higher-order language processes in complex ways, and we urge language researchers to carefully consider the role of presentation format in study design and interpretation of research findings. 

Key words  Ambiguity resolution, language comprehension, modality, inferior frontal gyrus

Features matter: the role of number and gender features during the online processing of subject- and object- relative clauses in Italian 

N. Biondo, Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

E. Pagliarini, Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies, University of Padova, Padova, Italy

V. Moscati, Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

L. Rizzi, Collège de France, Paris, France

A. Belletti, Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

Abstract In this study, we investigated whether different morphosyntactic features, i.e. number and gender, play a role during the adult online comprehension of subject relative clauses (SRC) and object relative clauses (ORC), in Italian. This study was inspired by developmental studies showing that children struggle with ORC compared to SRC; yet, ORC comprehension improves if the head and the subject of the RC mismatch in relevant morphosyntactic features (e.g. number but not gender in Italian, based on the featural Relativized Minimality principle, fRM). We found that Italian adults read ORC more slowly than SRC verbs; moreover, ORC verbs were read faster in the head-subject number mismatch condition, while there was no facilitation in the head-subject gender mismatch condition, in line with developmental studies and fRM. We conclude that online parsing is feature-sensitive, that features are not all equally “relevant”, and that current models should be refined to account for these differences. 

Key words Sentence comprehension, relative clauses, number features, gender features, self-paced reading, relativized minimality

The influence of predictability, visual contrast, and preview validity on eye movements and N400 amplitude: co-registration evidence that the N400 reflects late processes 

Jon Burnsky, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Amherst, USA

Franziska Kretzschmar, Leibniz Institute for the German Language, Mannheim, Germany

Erika Mayer, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Linguistics, Amherst, USA

Adrian Staub, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Amherst, USA

Abstract Two eye movement/EEG co-registration experiments investigated effects of predictability, visual contrast, and parafoveal preview in normal reading. Replicating previous studies, in Experiment 1 contrast and predictability additively influenced fixation durations, and in Experiment 2 invalid preview eliminated the predictability effect on early eye movement measures. In both experiments, predictability influenced the amplitude of the N400 component of the fixation-related potential. In Experiment 1, visual contrast did not influence the N400, and in Experiment 2, the effect of predictability on the N400 was larger with invalid preview, in opposition to the eye movement pattern. The N400 may reflect a late process of accessing conceptual representations while the duration of the eyes’ fixation on a word is sensitive to the difficulty of perceptual encoding and early stages of word recognition. The effects of predictability on both fixation duration and the N400 suggest an influence of this variable at two distinct processing stages. 

Key words Eye movements, N400, predictability, word recognition, reading

Do structural priming and inverse preference effect demand cognitive resources? Evidence from structural priming in production 

Xuemei Chen, Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China

Suiping Wang, Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China

Robert J. Hartsuiker, Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium

Abstract Implicit learning theories assume that structural priming is based on an error-based prediction mechanism (e.g. Chang et al. [2006]. Becoming syntactic. Psychological Review, 113(2), 234–272.), which predicts stronger priming when the bias of the verb in the prime sentence towards a syntactic structure mismatches the actual sentence’s structure (inverse preference priming). We investigated whether structural priming and inverse preference priming are modulated by cognitive resources such as demand on memory. Experiments 1 and 2 showed inverse preference priming in a priming task that exerted a relatively low cognitive load (sentence reading followed by picture description), but Experiments 3 and 4 found no such effect in a more demanding task (i.e. sentence reading, sentence recognition judgment, picture description, and picture recognition judgment). In the less demanding experiments, structural priming was always stronger and inverse preference priming was marginally stronger. These findings suggest an important role of cognitive resources in error-based learning. 

Key words Verb bias, structural priming, cognitive resources, memory, production

Developmental consistency in the use of subphonemic information during real-time sentence processing 

Erin Conwell, Department of Psychology, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA

Gregor Horvath, Rogers Behavioral Health, Oconomowoc, WI, USA

Allyson Kuznia, Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

Stephen J. Agauas, TMC Creative, Tulsa, OK, USA

Abstract Apparently homophonous sequences contain acoustic information that differentiates their meanings [Gahl. (2008). Time and thyme are not homophones: The effect of lemma frequency on word durations in spontaneous speech. Language, 84(3), 474–496; Quené. (1992). Durational cues for word segmentation in Dutch. Journal of Phonetics, 20(3), 331–350]. Adults use this information to segment embedded homophones [e.g. ham vs. hamster; Salverda et al. (2003). The role of prosodic boundaries in the resolution of lexical embedded in speech comprehension. Cognition, 90(1), 51–89] in fluent speech. Whether children also do this is unknown, as is whether listeners of any age use such information to disambiguate lexical homophones. In two experiments, 48 English-speaking adults and 48 English-speaking 7 to 10-year-old children viewed sets of four images and heard sentences containing phonemically identical sequences while their eye movements were continuously tracked. As in previous research, adults showed greater fixation of target meanings when the acoustic properties of an embedded homophone were consistent with the target than when they were consistent with the alternate interpretation. They did not show this difference for lexical homophones. Children’s behaviour was similar to that of adults, indicating that the use of subphonemic information in homophone processing is consistent over development. 

Key words Sentence processing, eye-tracking, homophones, Language development, subphonemic processing

Do readers misassign thematic roles? Evidence from a trailing boundary-change paradigm 

Kiel Christianson, University of Illinois, 1310 S. 6th St., College of Education, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820, USA; Advanced Science and Technology, Beckman Institute, Urbana, IL, USA

Jack Dempsey, University of Illinois, 1310 S. 6th St., College of Education, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820, USA

Sarah-Elizabeth M. Deshaies, University of Illinois, 1310 S. 6th St., College of Education, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820, USA

Anna Tsiola, University of Illinois, 1310 S. 6th St., College of Education, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820, USA

Laura P. Valderrama, University of Illinois, 1310 S. 6th St., College of Education, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820, USA

Abstract We report an eye-tracking experiment with a trailing boundary-change paradigm as people read subject- and object-relative clauses that were either plausible or implausible. We sought to determine whether readers sometime misassign thematic roles to arguments in implausible, noncanonical sentences. In some sentences, argument nouns were reversed after participants had read them. Thus, implausible noncanonical sentences like “The bird that the worm ate yesterday was small” changed to plausible “The worm that the bird ate was small.” If initial processing generates veridical representations, all changes should disrupt rereading, irrespective of plausibility or syntactic structure. Misinterpretation effects should only arise in offline comprehension. If misassignment of thematic roles occurs during initial processing, differences should be apparent in first-pass reading times, and rereading should be differentially affected by the direction of the text change. Results provide evidence that readers sometimes misassign roles during initial processing and sometimes fail to revise misassignments during rereading. 

Key words  Thematic-role reversal errors, noncanonical sentences, good-enough theory, eye tracking, language processing

A test of letter configuration coding in visual word recognition 

Joshua Snell, Matthew Simons, Leonie Warlo, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Abstract Most models of word recognition assume that a letter’s identity and position are conjointly encoded. This means that in words with repeated letters (e.g. “radar”), each instance of the same letter is coded as a separate object. Here we tested an alternative scenario, according to which the brain employs configurational representations (e.g. recognition of three units in the configuration 12321 activating “radar”). Such representations explain why one sees similarities between “radar” and “tenet”, and would offer an efficient way to compute letter repetitions. In two experiments, target word recognition was tested as a function of different-symbol primes that were configurationally congruent (“kgegk”—“radar”) or not (“kggke”—“radar”). We reasoned that if the brain indeed engages configuration codes, congruent primes should facilitate target recognition compared to incongruent primes. However, Bayesian statistical analyses provided strong evidence for the null-hypothesis. We surmise that the brain does not engage configuration codes in word recognition. 

Key words Reading, orthographic processing, letter position coding, word recognition, configuration coding‌

The cortical dynamics of context-dependent language processing 

Susanne Dietrich, Evolutionary Cognition, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Ingo Hertrich, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany;c Department for Neurology & Stroke, University Hospital of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Corinna Blum, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany;c Department for Neurology & Stroke, University Hospital of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Verena C. Seibold, Evolutionary Cognition, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Bettina Rolke, Evolutionary Cognition, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Abstract A previous functional magnetic resonance imaging study (Dietrich et al. [2019]. Discourse management during speech perception: A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. NeuroImage, 202, 116047. ) showed a contribution by the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA), the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and the basal ganglia (BG) in the processing of discourse structure. By applying dynamic causal modelling (DCM) to the data of this previous study, we aimed to shed further light on the functional interrelationships of these areas. Discourse coherence had been manipulated by using presupposition triggers in a test sentence that either corresponded or failed to correspond to a contextual item. We found connections from pre-SMA to IFG and from pre-SMA to BG. Additionally, participants’ ability to accommodate violations modulated the coupling from the BG to the pre-SMA. We discuss this pattern in light of the aslant tract transmitting control signals from the pre-SMA to the IFG that slow down procedural processing in case of errors. The pre-SMA itself seems to be regulated by the BG depending on whether participants accommodate a violation. 

Key words Basal ganglia, accommodation, discourse comprehension, cognitive control, network modeling, inhibition, presupposition

Testing the automaticity of syntax using masked visual priming 

Elena Pyatigorskaya, Matteo Maran, Emiliano Zaccarella, Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; International Max Planck Research School on Neuroscience of Communication: Function, Structure, and Plasticity, Leipzig, Germany

Abstract Language comprehension proceeds at a very fast pace. It is argued that context influences the speed of language comprehension by providing informative cues. How syntactic contextual information influences the processing of incoming words is, however, less known. Here we employed a masked syntactic priming paradigm in four behavioural experiments in the German language to test whether masked primes automatically influence the categorisation of nouns and verbs. We found robust syntactic priming effects with masked primes but only when verbs were morpho-syntactically marked. Furthermore, we found that, compared to baseline, primes slow down target categorisation when the relationship between prime and target is syntactically incorrect, rather than speeding it up when the relationship is syntactically correct. This argues in favour of an inhibitory nature of syntactic priming. Overall, the data indicate that humans automatically extract syntactic features from the context to guide the analysis of incoming words during online language processing. 

Key words  Automaticity, two-word phrase, context, masked syntactic priming, syntax‌

Automated clustering and switching algorithms applied to semantic verbal fluency data in schizophrenia spectrum disorders 

Chiara Barattieri di San Pietro, Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

Claudio Luzzatti, Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

Elisabetta Ferrari, Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

Giovanni de Girolamo, Psychiatric Epidemiology and Evaluation Unit, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy

Marco Marelli, Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

Abstract In the cognitive assessment of Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders (SSD), the standard scoring method for Verbal Fluency (VF) tasks is the number of correct words produced. Finer-grained measures, such as the size of semantic clusters and the number of transitions between them, have been proposed to characterise the cognitive functions involved, but results based on human ratings are heterogeneous. The objective of this study was to develop a computational procedure based on Vector Space Models (VSMs) to assess the predictive ability of these fine-grained measures for class membership in SSD. A semantic VF task was administered to thirty-five people with SSD and a matched group of healthy participants, and their VF productions were characterised manually and using a set of ad-hoc algorithms. Computational estimates consistently showed higher predictive accuracy than models built on VF measures computed by a human rater and models built on the sole total number of words. 

Key words Verbal fluency, schizophrenia, latent semantic analysis, word2vec, vector space models

The activation of embedded (pseudo-)stems in auditory lexical processing: implications for models of spoken word recognition 

Ava Creemers, Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Nattanun Chanchaochai, Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Department of Linguistics and Southeast Asian Linguistics Research Unit, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

Meredith Tamminga, Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

David Embick, Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Abstract A large literature on visual word recognition has examined the role of (apparent) morphological structure by comparing suffixed (such as treatment), pseudo-suffixed (pigment), and non-suffixed (dogma) words with respect to their embeddings (treat, pig, dog). We examined the processing of these word types, as well as semantic controls, in an auditory primed lexical decision paradigm. The results show significant priming in all conditions relative to an unrelated baseline, with larger priming effects for truly suffixed words than for pseudo-suffixed and non-suffixed words. The results suggest that initial embeddings are activated in spoken word processing, and remain active in ways that do not depend on (apparent) morphological structure. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of lexical access that predict inhibition of disfavoured competitors and models that hold that attempted decomposition is driven by meaning relatedness between the carrier word and its possible embedded stem(s). 

Key words  Morphological processing, embeddings, pseudo-suffixed words, spoken word recognition, stem priming

Priming asymmetry persists in German-English-French trilinguals: the sense model modified for the trilingual mental lexicon 

Xin Wang, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie Center of Reading, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

Christina Steinman, Department of Education, Oxford University, Oxford, UK

Marcus Taft, Center for the Cognitive Science of Language, Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China;d Department of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Abstract The present study examined within – and cross-language priming patterns among German-English-French trilinguals in order to explore the lexico-semantic representation of L3 in relation to L1 and L2. The trilinguals participated in three lexical decision tasks within the masked translation priming paradigm. The results showed significant within-language repetition priming effects in all three languages, significant translation priming effects for L2-L1, L1-L3, and L2-L3, but no significant priming for L1-L2, L3-L1 or L3-L2. Our findings demonstrate that translation priming asymmetry persists in trilinguals and that the weakest L3 is integrated into both L1 and L2 conceptually (i.e. three languages have a commonly shared conceptual representation). In addition, our results showed a language dominance shift over lexical development between L1 and L2. We argue for a modified Sense Model as the best fit to explain the cognitive architecture of the trilingual lexicon. 

Key words Translation priming, multilingualism, priming asymmetry, language proficiency, language dominance, trilingual lexicon

Interference in quantifier float and subject-verb agreement 

Hiroki Fujita, Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

Ian Cunnings, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK

Abstract When forming a dependency between two elements of a sentence, the processor must retrieve a grammaticality licensed element from memory. Previous research has suggested that this dependency formation is susceptible to interference from structurally unlicensed elements. However, there has been debate on why dependency formation is susceptible to interference and whether interference arises in only certain dependencies or not. The present study addressed these issues in four self-paced reading experiments and four speeded judgement experiments by investigating a well-examined dependency, namely subject-verb agreement, and so-called quantifier float, which remains unexplored in existing sentence processing research. Our results largely suggested interference in ungrammatical sentences, but we did not find clear interference effects in grammatical sentences. We argue that both subject-verb agreement and quantifier float are similarly susceptible to interference when the processor initiates cue-based memory retrieval and retrieves a structurally unlicensed element due to difficulties forming grammatically licit dependencies. 

Key words  Dependency formation, interference, quantifier float, language comprehension, sentence processing

Subjectivity predicts adjective ordering preferences in Hebrew, but lexical factors matter too 

Nitzan Trainin, Einat Shetreet, Department of Linguistics, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Abstract Adjective ordering preferences have been addressed by theoretical and empirical studies. Some accounts propose that the distance of an adjective from the head noun depends on its semantic/conceptual features such as subjectivity. Subjectivity has been observed to reliably predict adjective ordering cross-linguistically, albeit with variation in strength. We propose that cross-linguistic variation might stem from lexical factors, which might operate differently in pre- and post-nominal languages. Frequency, for example, may affect ordering linearly with frequent words appearing earlier in the string, rather than based on distance from the noun. Our study aimed at examining this hypothesis, using a binary forced-choice task contrasting two adjective orders in a post-nominal language (i.e. Hebrew). Our results suggest that subjectivity is indeed a strong predictor for ordering preferences, but its effect interacts with lexical factors. Our findings highlight the importance of studying a diversity of languages, where linguistic phenomena might manifest differently. 

Key words Subjectivity, adjective order, frequency, reference, cross-linguistic variation

Do two negatives make a positive? Language and logic in language processing 

I-An Tan, Nitsan Kugler-Etinger, Neurolinguistics Lab, Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

Yosef Grodzinsky, Neurolinguistics Lab, Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany

Abstract This study focuses on a factor known to increase sentence processing complexity – negation. We sought to distill out of negation a logical property – Inference Reversal – to see whether it, and not an actual negation word, determines this complexity. First, we tested a negation-less pair of polar operators (at most, at least) in Hebrew. We found that processing time for sentences containing the Inference Reversing at most lagged behind those with at least. Second, we compared the processing of sentences containing two Inference Reversing operators (not less) to sentences with zero (ø, more) and one (not more, less). Since two Inference Reversing Operators annul Inference Reversal (“two negatives make a positive”), we asked whether their processing cost is annulled, or rather cumulative. Surprisingly, RTnot less was shorter than RTnot more. These findings lead to the conclusion that even when covert, Inference Reversal is an important determinant of processing complexity. 

Key words Monotonicity, negation, double negation, quantifiers, sentence processing

期刊简介

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience is aninternational peer-reviewed journal promoting integrated cognitive theoreticalstudies of language and its neural bases.

《语言、认知和神经科学》是一本国际同行评议杂志，旨在促进语言及其神经基础的综合认知理论研究。

The journal takes an interdisciplinaryapproach to the study of brain and language, aiming to integrate excellentcognitive science and neuroscience to answer key questions about the nature oflanguage and cognition in the mind and the brain. 

该期刊采用跨学科的方法研究大脑和语言，旨在整合优秀的认知科学和神经科学，回答有关大脑和大脑中语言和认知本质的关键问题。

It aims to engage researchersand practitioners alike in how to better understand cognitive language function,including:

• Language cognition

• Neuroscience

• Brain and language

它旨在让研究人员和实践者共同参与如何更好地理解认知语言功能，包括：

• 语言认知

• 神经科学

• 大脑与语言

官网地址：

https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/plcp21

课程推荐

今日小编：疏语玉音

审     核：心得小蔓

转载&合作请联系

"心得君"

微信：xindejun_yyxxd

点击“阅读原文”可跳转下载