Cross-Linguistic Influence in the Bilingual Mental Lexicon: Evidence of Cognate Effects in the Phonetic Production and Processing of a Vowel Contrast.

The present study examines cognate effects in the phonetic production and processing of the Catalan back mid-vowel contrast (/o/-/ɔ/) by 24 early and highly proficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals in Majorca (Spain). Participants completed a picture-naming task and a forced-choice lexical decision task in which they were presented with either words (e.g., /bɔsk/ "forest") or non-words based on real words, but with the alternate mid-vowel pair in stressed position ((*)/bosk/). The same cognate and non-cognate lexical items were included in the production and lexical decision experiments. The results indicate that even though these early bilinguals maintained the back mid-vowel contrast in their productions, they had great difficulties identifying non-words and real words based on the identity of the Catalan mid-vowel. The analyses revealed language dominance and cognate effects: Spanish-dominants exhibited higher error rates than Catalan-dominants, and production and lexical decision accuracy were also affected by cognate status. The present study contributes to the discussion of the organization of early bilinguals' dominant and non-dominant sound systems, and proposes that exemplar theoretic approaches can be extended to include bilingual lexical connections that account for the interactions between the phonetic and lexical levels of early bilingual individuals

Model selection with estimated factors and idiosyncratic components

This paper provides consistent information criteria for the selection of forecasting models which use a subset of both the idiosyncratic and common factor components of a big dataset. This hybrid model approach has been explored by recent empirical studies to relax the strictness of pure factor-augmented model approximations, but no formal model selection procedures have been developed. The main difference to previous factor-augmented model selection procedures is that we must account for estimation error in the idiosyncratic component as well as the factors. Our main contribution is to show the conditions required for selection consistency of a class of information criteria which reflect this additional source of estimation error. We show that existing factor-augmented model selection criteria are inconsistent in circumstances where N is of larger order than root-T, where N and T are the cross-section and time series dimensions of the dataset respectively, and that the standard BIC is inconsistent regardless of the relationship between N and T. We therefore propose a new set of information criteria which guarantee selection consistency in the presence of estimated idiosyncratic components. The properties of these new criteria are explored through a Monte Carlo simulation study. The paper concludes with an empirical application to long-horizon exchange rate forecasting using a recently proposed model with country-specific idiosyncratic components from a panel of global exchange rates

New insights and changing paradigms in the regulation of vitamin A metabolism in development

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Shannon, S. R., Moise, A. R., & Trainor, P. A. (2017). New insights and changing paradigms in the regulation of vitamin A metabolism in development. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Developmental Biology, 6(3), 10.1002/wdev.264, which has been published in final form at http://doi.org/10.1002/wdev.264 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.Vitamin A and its active metabolite retinoic acid are essential for embryonic development and adult homeostasis. Surprisingly, excess or deficiency of vitamin A and retinoic acid can cause similar developmental defects. Therefore, strict feedback and other mechanisms exist to regulate the levels of retinoic acid within a narrow physiological range. The oxidation of vitamin A to retinal has recently been established as a critical nodal point in the synthesis of retinoic acid, and over the past decade, RDH10 and DHRS3 have emerged as the predominant enzymes that regulate this reversible reaction. Together they form a codependent complex that facilitates negative feedback maintenance of retinoic acid levels and thus guard against the effects of dysregulated vitamin A metabolism and retinoic acid synthesis. This review focuses on advances in our understanding of the roles of Rdh10 and Dhrs3 and their impact on development and disease

Cross-Linguistic Influence in the Bilingual Mental Lexicon: Evidence of Cognate Effects in the Phonetic Production and Processing of a Vowel Contrast.

The present study examines cognate effects in the phonetic production and processing of the Catalan back mid-vowel contrast (/o/-/ɔ/) by 24 early and highly proficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals in Majorca (Spain). Participants completed a picture-naming task and a forced-choice lexical decision task in which they were presented with either words (e.g., /bɔsk/ "forest") or non-words based on real words, but with the alternate mid-vowel pair in stressed position ((*)/bosk/). The same cognate and non-cognate lexical items were included in the production and lexical decision experiments. The results indicate that even though these early bilinguals maintained the back mid-vowel contrast in their productions, they had great difficulties identifying non-words and real words based on the identity of the Catalan mid-vowel. The analyses revealed language dominance and cognate effects: Spanish-dominants exhibited higher error rates than Catalan-dominants, and production and lexical decision accuracy were also affected by cognate status. The present study contributes to the discussion of the organization of early bilinguals' dominant and non-dominant sound systems, and proposes that exemplar theoretic approaches can be extended to include bilingual lexical connections that account for the interactions between the phonetic and lexical levels of early bilingual individuals

Exploring Cross-Linguistic Effects and Phonetic Interactions in the Context of Bilingualism: Introducing the Special Issue

Bilinguals who have acquired both of their languages simultaneously since birth or have learned their first language (L1) and their second language (L2) sequentially, as children or as adults, are able to produce and perceive two different sound systems [...

The perception of language-specific phonetic categories does not guarantee accurate phonological representations in the lexicon of early bilinguals

ABSTRACTThis study examines the perception and processing of the Catalan /e/–/ɛ/ and /o/–/ɔ/ vowel contrasts by 60 Spanish–Catalan bilinguals in Majorca (Spain). Results from binary forced-choice identification, AX discrimination, and lexical decision tasks show that even though these early and highly proficient bilinguals demonstrate a high accuracy in perceptual identification and discrimination tasks, they have difficulties distinguishing between words and nonwords in a lexical decision task. Spanish dominants also exhibited higher error rates than Catalan dominants in the lexical decision task. These findings provide evidence that making explicit judgments regarding whether a certain sound belongs to a phonemic category (i.e., as accomplished via identification and discrimination tasks) does not entail that listeners have an appropriate representation at the lexical level

The perception of language-specific phonetic categories does not guarantee accurate phonological representations in the lexicon of early bilinguals

ABSTRACTThis study examines the perception and processing of the Catalan /e/–/ɛ/ and /o/–/ɔ/ vowel contrasts by 60 Spanish–Catalan bilinguals in Majorca (Spain). Results from binary forced-choice identification, AX discrimination, and lexical decision tasks show that even though these early and highly proficient bilinguals demonstrate a high accuracy in perceptual identification and discrimination tasks, they have difficulties distinguishing between words and nonwords in a lexical decision task. Spanish dominants also exhibited higher error rates than Catalan dominants in the lexical decision task. These findings provide evidence that making explicit judgments regarding whether a certain sound belongs to a phonemic category (i.e., as accomplished via identification and discrimination tasks) does not entail that listeners have an appropriate representation at the lexical level