Number Specification in L2 processing of Norwegian adult L2 English speakers: Time-frequency representation (TFR) analysis

This thesis investigates the processing of non-local agreement violations and whether they are affected by double marking from a determiner-number specification in Norwegian L2 speakers of English. We tested non-local subject-verb agreement, a mismatch between Norwegian and English, and the double marking on the number of the noun that is a common feature of the two languages by using online Grammaticality Judgement test (GJT) during EEG (electroencephalogram) recording. There were four conditions to test the participants’ sensitivity towards determiner number specification: (1) Grammatical unspecified, (2) ungrammatical unspecified, (3) grammatical specified, (4) ungrammatical specified. The EEG data were analyzed with TFRs (time-frequency references) to observe the changes in different frequency bands of neural oscillations. Behavioural and neural responses to the sentences were compared to understand the neural mechanisms regarding the interaction between non-local agreement violations and determiner-number specification. The results showed no evidence for an interaction between specificity and grammaticality. The specificity did not seem to affect participants’ judgment of the grammaticality. That is, we did not see any change in the theta band (4-8 Hz); however, a relative decrease in the activation for the ungrammatical items vs grammatical items in the alpha band (8-12 Hz) and a relative decrease in the activation for the number-specified items vs number-unspecified items in alpha bands (8-12 Hz) was observed. The alpha band reactivity observed during language comprehension does not necessarily reflect the linguistic analyses but the attention. Alpha band decrease is explained as the engagement of the additional attentional resources to explain a faulty representation. The results of the behavioural data showed that the participants were better when judging the grammatical sentences than the ungrammatical sentences, and the unspecified grammatical sentences were judged more accurately than the other three conditions. The findings of the current study suggest that the agreement violation in GJT led the participants to have increased attentional process demands as they needed to judge the mismatching property between their L1 Norwegian and L2 English

Transfer of Training between Music and Speech: Common Processing, Attention, and Memory

After a brief historical perspective of the relationship between language and music, we review our work on transfer of training from music to speech that aimed at testing the general hypothesis that musicians should be more sensitive than non-musicians to speech sounds. In light of recent results in the literature, we argue that when long-term experience in one domain influences acoustic processing in the other domain, results can be interpreted as common acoustic processing. But when long-term experience in one domain influences the building-up of abstract and specific percepts in another domain, results are taken as evidence for transfer of training effects. Moreover, we also discuss the influence of attention and working memory on transfer effects and we highlight the usefulness of the event-related potentials method to disentangle the different processes that unfold in the course of music and speech perception. Finally, we give an overview of an on-going longitudinal project with children aimed at testing transfer effects from music to different levels and aspects of speech processing

Musical phrase boundaries, wrap-up and the closure positive shift

We investigated global integration (wrap-up) processes at the boundaries of musical phrases by comparing the effects of well and non-well formed phrases on event-related potentials time-locked to two boundary points: the onset and the offset of the boundary pause. The Closure Positive Shift, which is elicited at the boundary offset, was not modulated by the quality of phrase structure (well vs. non-well formed). In contrast, the boundary onset potentials showed different patterns for well and non-well formed phrases. Our results contribute to specify the functional meaning of the Closure Positive Shift in music, shed light on the large-scale structural integration of musical input, and raise new hypotheses concerning shared resources between music and language

Individual differences in processing pitch contour and rise time in adults: A behavioral and electrophysiological study of Cantonese tone merging

One way to understand the relationship between speech perception and production is to examine cases where the two dissociate. This study investigates the hypothesis that perceptual acuity reflected in event-related potentials (ERPs) to rise time of sound amplitude envelope and pitch contour (reflected in the mismatch negativity, MMN) may associate with individual differences in production among speakers with otherwise comparable perceptual abilities. To test this hypothesis, we took advantage of an on-going sound change – tone merging in Cantonese, and compared the ERPs between two groups of typically-developed native speakers who could discriminate the high rising and low rising tones with equivalent accuracy but differed in the distinctiveness of their production of these tones. Using a passive oddball paradigm, early positive-going EEG components to rise time and MMN to pitch contour were elicited during perception of the two tones. Significant group differences were found in neural responses to rise time rather than pitch contour. More importantly, individual differences in efficiency of tone discrimination in response latency and magnitude of neural responses to rise time were correlated with acoustic measures of F0 offset and rise time differences in productions of the two rising tones.published_or_final_versio

(Dis)connections between specific language impairment and dyslexia in Chinese

Poster Session: no. 26P.40Specific language impairment (SLI) and dyslexia describe language-learning impairments that occur in the absence of a sensory, cognitive, or psychosocial impairment. SLI is primarily defined by an impairment in oral language, and dyslexia by a deficit in the reading of written words. SLI and dyslexia co-occur in school-age children learning English, with rates ranging from 17% to 75%. For children learning Chinese, SLI and dyslexia also co-occur. Wong et al. (2010) first reported on the presence of dyslexia in a clinical sample of 6- to 11-year-old school-age children with SLI. The study compared the reading-related cognitive skills of children with SLI and dyslexia (SLI-D) with 2 groups of children …postprin

Uncovering the myth of learning to read Chinese characters: phonetic, semantic, and orthographic strategies used by Chinese as foreign language learners

Oral Session - 6A: Lexical modeling: no. 6A.3Chinese is considered to be one of the most challenging orthographies to be learned by non-native speakers, in particular, the character. Chinese character is the basic reading unit that converges sound, form and meaning. The predominant type of Chinese character is semantic-phonetic compound that is composed of phonetic and semantic radicals, giving the clues of the sound and meaning, respectively. Over the last two decades, psycholinguistic research has made significant progress in specifying the roles of phonetic and semantic radicals in character processing among native Chinese speakers …postprin

The Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE) framework for understanding musicality-language links across the lifespan

Using individual differences approaches, a growing body of literature finds positive associations between musicality and language-related abilities, complementing prior findings of links between musical training and language skills. Despite these associations, musicality has been often overlooked in mainstream models of individual differences in language acquisition and development. To better understand the biological basis of these individual differences, we propose the Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE) framework. This novel integrative framework posits that musical and language-related abilities likely share some common genetic architecture (i.e., genetic pleiotropy) in addition to some degree of overlapping neural endophenotypes, and genetic influences on musically and linguistically enriched environments. Drawing upon recent advances in genomic methodologies for unraveling pleiotropy, we outline testable predictions for future research on language development and how its underlying neurobiological substrates may be supported by genetic pleiotropy with musicality. In support of the MAPLE framework, we review and discuss findings from over seventy behavioral and neural studies, highlighting that musicality is robustly associated with individual differences in a range of speech-language skills required for communication and development. These include speech perception-in-noise, prosodic perception, morphosyntactic skills, phonological skills, reading skills, and aspects of second/foreign language learning. Overall, the current work provides a clear agenda and framework for studying musicality-language links using individual differences approaches, with an emphasis on leveraging advances in the genomics of complex musicality and language traits