Principles of Stakes Fairness in Sport

Fairness in sport is not just about assigning the top prizes to the worthiest competitors. It is also about the way the prize structure itself is organised. For many sporting competitions, although it may be acceptable for winners to receive more than losers, it can seem unfair for winners to take everything and for losers to get nothing. Yet this insight leaves unanswered some difficult questions about what stakes fairness requires and which principles of stakes fairness are appropriate for particular competitions. In this article I specify a range of different principles of stakes fairness (ten in total) that could regulate sporting competitions. I also put forward a theoretical method for pairing up appropriate principles of stakes fairness with given sporting competitions. Specifically, I argue that the underlying rationales for holding sporting competitions can provide useful guides for identifying appropriate principles of stakes fairness. I then seek to clarify and work through some of the implications of this method for a sample of real world controversies over sporting prize structures. I also attempt to refine the method in response to two possible objections from indeterminacy and relativism. Finally, I compare and contrast my conclusions with more general philosophical debates about justice

Rapid and automatic speech-specific learning mechanism in human neocortex

Peer reviewe

Semantic Attention: Effects of Modality, Lexicality and Semantic Content

Since the discovery of the Stroop Effect in 1935 questions about the role of language vs. non-lexical stimuli in selective attention remain. Early researchers attributed the powerful distracting influence shown in the Stroop task, naming the color in which a spelled word is printed when incongruent with the color name the word spells, to an automaticity of language that gives it privileged access to meaning, but many others since have shown various ways to reduce or even reverse this distracting effect of an incongruent word. This study addresses this by using EEG to record neural activity along with reaction time and accuracy in a temporal flanker selective attention paradigm that uses all combinations of visual and auditory modalities with word and non-word lexicality as both flanking distractors and as targets, manipulating attention using semantically congruent and incongruent trials, thus controlling for the effects of modality, lexicality and semantic congruence on the selective attention task of ignoring the flankers and discriminating the target. We found that in addition to strong main effects of each of these factors, many complex two and three-way interaction effects shifted the effects of each factor depending on the levels of the other factors. We confirmed that the condition of semantic incongruence disrupts attention, shown by reduced performance accuracy and indexed by stronger peak of the N2 ERP between 250 and 310 ms after the target stimulus presentation. We found no support for the hypothesis that words have privileged automaticity, since stimulus lexicality, whether the distractor or target was a word or non-word, did not have a significant main effect on response accuracy. We found that the sensory modality of the distracting and target stimuli , whether auditory or visual, had complex interactions with their word or non-word lexicality that influenced the disrupting effects of semantic incongruence on attention. We propose a model based on 2 well-established frameworks in the neuroscience of attention, that of multiple networks governing 3 stages of attention processing, and parallel multi-modal sensory processing being bottlenecked by sequential language processing, to interpret these interacting effects on attention

In Search of a Lost Effect: Generality of Discrepancy Effects in Memory Paradigms

The current project investigated the generality of discrepancy effect in retrospective memory (RM) reported by Whittlesea and colleagues (e.g., Whittlesea & Williams, 2001a) and the generality of discrepancy effect in prospective memory (PM) reported by McDaniel and colleagues (e.g., McDaniel, Guynn, Einstein, & Breneiser, 2004). Experiments 1a and 2 tested the claim that discrepancy, elicited by mismatching the expected and the actual processing fluency, can give rise to familiarity under an RM context and increase familiarity judgments of discrepant items, independent of previous encounters with those items. Experiment 1b tested the claim that, within a PM context, such discrepancy can signal that discrepant items are significant and this significance can initiate the search for the source of the significance, thereby enhancing PM performance for discrepant PM cues. The current project attempted to elicit discrepancy by implementing a processing fluency paradigm with masked priming and a modified perceptual mask for Experiments 1a and 1b or high and low frequency words for Experiment 2. The discrepancy was manipulated by mismatching/matching the processing fluency of some items to the processing fluency of other items (e.g., fluent items embedded within disfluent items = discrepant items). In Experiment 1a, hit rates were higher for more fluently processed items (i.e., items with no perceptual mask) than less fluently processed items (items with a difficult perceptual mask), independent of discrepancy. In Experiment 2, hit rates were higher for low frequency words than high frequency words, independent of discrepancy. Furthermore, both in Experiments 1a and 2, false alarm rates did not differ as a function of discrepancy, fluency, or word frequency. In Experiment 1b, PM performance did not differ between discrepant and nondiscrepant PM cues. These results suggest that the discrepancy effects in RM and PM might not be as general as previously claimed

The Influence of Literacy on Speech. The Orthographic Consistency Effect in Auditory Language Perception and Language Production

136 p.The present thesis presents a series of experiments that explore of the Orthographic Consistency Effect (OCE) in auditory language perception and production. The OCE is a psycholinguistic effect that shows a facilitation in processing words with sounds that can be spelled in only one way (e.g., /t/ in French or Spanish) in comparison to words with sounds that can be spelled in multiple ways (e.g., /k/ in French or Spanish). The OCE can be considered as a by-product of literacy since it is displayed by people who know how to read and write. In Experiment 1, the OCE in auditory language perception in L1-French and L1-Spanish adults was investigated by means of an auditory lexical decision task (LDT). Experiment 2 investigated the OCE in Spanish seven-year-olds, who are at an early stage of reading acquisition, in auditory language perception using the same paradigm as in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 investigated the time course and the brain correlates of the OCE in auditory language perception. L1-Spanish adults were tested in an auditory LDT and a passive listening task. Experiment 4 explored the OCE in language production of French and Spanish adults by means of reading aloud and picture naming tasks. Experiment 5 replicated Experiment 4 but with Spanish seven-year-olds. Overall, this work showed that literacy can strategically influence language perception and production.The project that gave rise to these results received the support of a fellowship from ”la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434). The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/IN18/11660068. This project has also received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 713673. The research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 819093)

How much do visual cues help listeners in perceiving accented speech?

It has been documented that lipreading facilitates the understanding of difficult speech, such as noisy speech and time-compressed speech. However, relatively little work has addressed the role of visual information in perceiving accented speech, another type of difficult speech. In this study, we specifically focus on accented word recognition. One hundred forty-two native English speakers made lexical decision judgments on English words or nonwords produced by speakers with Mandarin Chinese accents. The stimuli were presented as either as videos that were of a relatively far speaker or as videos in which we zoomed in on the speaker’s head. Consistent with studies of degraded speech, listeners were more accurate at recognizing accented words when they saw lip movements from the closer apparent distance. The effect of apparent distance tended to be larger under nonoptimal conditions: when stimuli were nonwords than words, and when stimuli were produced by a speaker who had a relatively strong accent. However, we did not find any influence of listeners’ prior experience with Chinese accented speech, suggesting that cross-talker generalization is limited. The current study provides practical suggestions for effective communication between native and nonnative speakers: visual information is useful, and it is more useful in some circumstances than others.Support was provided by Ministerio de Ciencia E Innovacion, Grant PSI2014-53277, Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa, Grant SEV-2015-0490, and by the National Science Foundation under Grant IBSS-1519908. We also appreciate the constructive suggestions of Dr. Yue Wang and two anonymous reviewers

First- and second-language phonological representations in the mental lexicon

Performance-based studies on the psychological nature of linguistic competence can conceal significant differences in the brain processes that underlie native versus nonnative knowledge of language. Here we report results from the brain activity of very proficient early bilinguals making a lexical decision task that illustrates this point. Two groups of SpanishCatalan early bilinguals (Spanish-dominant and Catalan-dominant) were asked to decide whether a given form was a Catalan word or not. The nonwords were based on real words, with one vowel changed. In the experimental stimuli, the vowel change involved a Catalan-specific contrast that previous research had shown to be difficult for Spanish natives to perceive. In the control stimuli, the vowel switch involved contrasts common to Spanish and Catalan. The results indicated that the groups of bilinguals did not differ in their behavioral and event-related brain potential measurements for the control stimuli; both groups made very few errors and showed a larger N400 component for control nonwords than for control words. However, significant differences were observed for the experimental stimuli across groups: Specifically, Spanish-dominant bilinguals showed great difficulty in rejecting experimental nonwords. Indeed, these participants not only showed very high error rates for these stimuli, but also did not show an error-related negativity effect in their erroneous nonword decisions. However, both groups of bilinguals showed a larger correctrelated negativity when making correct decisions about the experimental nonwords. The results suggest that although some aspects of a second language system may show a remarkable lack of plasticity (like the acquisition of some foreign contrasts), first-language representations seem to be more dynamic in their capacity of adapting and incorporating new information.

Effects of Attention on what is known and what is not: MEG Evidence for Functionally Discrete Memory Circuits

Recent results obtained with a neural-network model of the language cortex suggest that the memory circuits developing for words are both distributed and functionally discrete. This model makes testable predictions about brain responses to words and pseudowords under variable availability of attentional resources. In particular, due to their strong internal connections, the action-perception circuits for words that the network spontaneously developed exhibit functionally discrete activation dynamics, which are only marginally affected by attentional variations. At the same time, network responses to unfamiliar items – pseudowords – that have not been previously learned (and, therefore, lack corresponding memory representations) exhibit (and predict) strong attention dependence, explained by the different amounts of attentional resources available and, therefore, different degrees of competition between multiple memory circuits partially activated by items lacking lexical traces. We tested these predictions in a novel magnetoencephalography experiment and presented subjects with familiar words and matched unfamiliar pseudowords during attention demanding tasks and under distraction. The magnetic mismatch negativity (MMN) response to words showed relative immunity to attention variations, whereas the MMN to pseudowords exhibited profound variability: when subjects attended the stimuli, the brain response to pseudowords was larger than that to words (as typically observed in the N400); when attention was withdrawn, the opposite pattern emerged, with the response to pseudowords reduced below the response to words. Main cortical sources of these activations were localized to superior-temporal cortex. These results confirm the model's predictions and provide evidence in support of the hypothesis that words are represented in the brain as action-perception circuits that are both discrete and distributed

Temporal relation between top-down and bottom-up processing in lexical tone perception

Speech perception entails both top-down processing that relies primarily on language experience and bottom-up processing that depends mainly on instant auditory input. Previous models of speech perception often claim that bottom-up processing occurs in an early time window, whereas top-down processing takes place in a late time window after stimulus onset. In this paper, we evaluated the temporal relation of both types of processing in lexical tone perception. We conducted a series of event-related potential (ERP) experiments that recruited Mandarin participants and adopted three experimental paradigms, namely dichotic listening, lexical decision with phonological priming, and semantic violation. By systematically analyzing the lateralization patterns of the early and late ERP components that are observed in these experiments, we discovered that: auditory processing of pitch variations in tones, as a bottom-up effect, elicited greater right hemisphere activation; in contrast, linguistic processing of lexical tones, as a top-down effect, elicited greater left hemisphere activation. We also found that both types of processing co-occurred in both the early (around 200 ms) and late (around 300–500 ms) time windows, which supported a parallel model of lexical tone perception. Unlike the previous view that language processing is special and performed by dedicated neural circuitry, our study have elucidated that language processing can be decomposed into general cognitive functions (e.g., sensory and memory) and share neural resources with these functions.published_or_final_versio

Neural dynamics of inflectional and derivational processing in spoken word comprehension: laterality and automaticity.

Rapid and automatic processing of grammatical complexity is argued to take place during speech comprehension, engaging a left-lateralized fronto-temporal language network. Here we address how neural activity in these regions is modulated by the grammatical properties of spoken words. We used combined magneto- and electroencephalography to delineate the spatiotemporal patterns of activity that support the recognition of morphologically complex words in English with inflectional (-s) and derivational (-er) affixes (e.g., bakes, baker). The mismatch negativity, an index of linguistic memory traces elicited in a passive listening paradigm, was used to examine the neural dynamics elicited by morphologically complex words. Results revealed an initial peak 130-180 ms after the deviation point with a major source in left superior temporal cortex. The localization of this early activation showed a sensitivity to two grammatical properties of the stimuli: (1) the presence of morphological complexity, with affixed words showing increased left-laterality compared to non-affixed words; and (2) the grammatical category, with affixed verbs showing greater left-lateralization in inferior frontal gyrus compared to affixed nouns (bakes vs. beaks). This automatic brain response was additionally sensitive to semantic coherence (the meaning of the stem vs. the meaning of the whole form) in left middle temporal cortex. These results demonstrate that the spatiotemporal pattern of neural activity in spoken word processing is modulated by the presence of morphological structure, predominantly engaging the left-hemisphere's fronto-temporal language network, and does not require focused attention on the linguistic input