Referential precedents in spoken language comprehension: a review and meta-analysis

Listeners’ interpretations of referring expressions are influenced by referential precedents—temporary conventions established in a discourse that associate linguistic expressions with referents. A number of psycholinguistic studies have investigated how much precedent effects depend on beliefs about the speaker’s perspective versus more egocentric, domain-general processes. We review and provide a meta-analysis of visual-world eyetracking studies of precedent use, focusing on three principal effects: (1) a same speaker advantage for maintained precedents; (2) a different speaker advantage for broken precedents; and (3) an overall main effect of precedents. Despite inconsistent claims in the literature, our combined analysis reveals surprisingly consistent evidence supporting the existence of all three effects, but with different temporal profiles. These findings carry important implications for existing theoretical explanations of precedent use, and challenge explanations based solely on the use of information about speakers’ perspectives

Human Communication Systems Evolve by Cultural Selection

Human communication systems, such as language, evolve culturally; their components undergo reproduction and variation. However, a role for selection in cultural evolutionary dynamics is less clear. Often neutral evolution (also known as 'drift') models, are used to explain the evolution of human communication systems, and cultural evolution more generally. Under this account, cultural change is unbiased: for instance, vocabulary, baby names and pottery designs have been found to spread through random copying. While drift is the null hypothesis for models of cultural evolution it does not always adequately explain empirical results. Alternative models include cultural selection, which assumes variant adoption is biased. Theoretical models of human communication argue that during conversation interlocutors are biased to adopt the same labels and other aspects of linguistic representation (including prosody and syntax). This basic alignment mechanism has been extended by computer simulation to account for the emergence of linguistic conventions. When agents are biased to match the linguistic behavior of their interlocutor, a single variant can propagate across an entire population of interacting computer agents. This behavior-matching account operates at the level of the individual. We call it the Conformity-biased model. Under a different selection account, called content-biased selection, functional selection or replicator selection, variant adoption depends upon the intrinsic value of the particular variant (e.g., ease of learning or use). This second alternative account operates at the level of the cultural variant. Following Boyd and Richerson we call it the Content-biased model. The present paper tests the drift model and the two biased selection models' ability to explain the spread of communicative signal variants in an experimental micro-society

The positive side of a negative reference: the delay between linguistic processing and common ground

Interlocutors converge on names to refer to entities. For example, a speaker might refer to a novel looking object as the jellyfish and, once identified, the listener will too. The hypothesized mechanism behind such referential precedents is a subject of debate. The common ground view claims that listeners register the object as well as the identity of the speaker who coined the label. The linguistic view claims that, once established, precedents are treated by listeners like any other linguistic unit, i.e. without needing to keep track of the speaker. To test predictions from each account, we used visual-world eyetracking, which allows observations in real time, during a standard referential communication task. Participants had to select objects based on instructions from two speakers. In the critical condition, listeners sought an object with a negative reference such as not the jellyfish. We aimed to determine the extent to which listeners rely on the linguistic input, common ground or both. We found that initial interpretations were based on linguistic processing only and that common ground considerations do emerge but only after 1000 ms. Our findings support the idea that-at least temporally-linguistic processing can be isolated from common ground

Conversational interaction in the scanner:mentalizing during language processing as revealed by MEG

Humans are especially good at taking another's perspective-representing what others might be thinking or experiencing. This "mentalizing" capacity is apparent in everyday human interactions and conversations. We investigated its neural basis using magnetoencephalography. We focused on whether mentalizing was engaged spontaneously and routinely to understand an utterance's meaning or largely on-demand, to restore "common ground" when expectations were violated. Participants conversed with 1 of 2 confederate speakers and established tacit agreements about objects' names. In a subsequent "test" phase, some of these agreements were violated by either the same or a different speaker. Our analysis of the neural processing of test phase utterances revealed recruitment of neural circuits associated with language (temporal cortex), episodic memory (e.g., medial temporal lobe), and mentalizing (temporo-parietal junction and ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Theta oscillations (3-7 Hz) were modulated most prominently, and we observed phase coupling between functionally distinct neural circuits. The episodic memory and language circuits were recruited in anticipation of upcoming referring expressions, suggesting that context-sensitive predictions were spontaneously generated. In contrast, the mentalizing areas were recruited on-demand, as a means for detecting and resolving perceived pragmatic anomalies, with little evidence they were activated to make partner-specific predictions about upcoming linguistic utterances

Advanced Physical Diagnosis: An Innovative Interprofessional Approach for Teaching Clinical Skills to Senior Medical Students

Conclusions: This interprofessional education session, employing a case-based videotape, was successful in illustrating to senior medical students the roles of OT and PT in patient management, and in increasing their awareness of the types of patient problems that would warrant referral for OT and PT services. The team is developing learning activities for future modules for medical students to teach the role of occupational and physical therapies in interprofessional health care

Understanding mixed effects models through data simulation

Experimental designs that sample both subjects and stimuli from a larger population need to account for random effects of both subjects and stimuli using mixed effects models. However, much of this research is analyzed using ANOVA on aggregated responses because researchers are not confident specifying and interpreting mixed effects models. The tutorial will explain how to simulate data with random effects structure and analyse the data using linear mixed effects regression (with the lme4 R package), with a focus on interpreting the output in light of the simulated parameters. Data simulation can not only enhance understanding of how these models work, but also enables researchers to perform power calculations for complex designs. All materials associated with this article can be accessed at https://osf.io/3cz2e/

Editorial: The inaugural issue

No abstract available

Interrogation of carboxy-terminus localized GJA1 variants associated with erythrokeratodermia variabilis et progressiva

Although inherited GJA1 (encoding Cx43) gene mutations most often lead to oculodentodig-ital dysplasia and related disorders, four variants have been linked to erythrokeratodermia variabilis et progressiva (EKVP), a skin disorder characterized by erythematous and hyperkeratotic lesions. While two autosomal-dominant EKVP-linked GJA1 mutations have been shown to lead to augmented hemichannels, the consequence(s) of keratinocytes harboring a de novo P283L variant alone or in combination with a de novo T290N variant remain unknown. Interestingly, these variants reside within or adjacent to a carboxy terminus polypeptide motif that has been shown to be important in regulating the internalization and degradation of Cx43. Cx43-rich rat epidermal keratinocytes (REKs) or Cx43-ablated REKs engineered to express fluorescent protein-tagged P283L and/or T290N variants formed prototypical gap junctions at cell–cell interfaces similar to wildtype Cx43. Dye coupling and dye uptake studies further revealed that each variant or a combination of both variants formed functional gap junction channels, with no evidence of augmented hemichannel function or induction of cell death. Tracking the fate of EKVP-associated variants in the presence of the protein secretion blocker brefeldin A, or an inhibitor of protein synthesis cycloheximide, revealed that P283L or the combination of P283L and T290N variants either significantly extended Cx43 residency on the cell surface of keratinocytes or delayed its degradation. However, caution is needed in concluding that this modest change in the Cx43 life cycle is sufficient to cause EKVP, or whether an additional underlying mechanism or another unidentified gene mutation is contributing to the pathogenesis found in patients. This question will be resolved if further patients are identified where whole exome sequencing reveals a Cx43 P283L variant alone or, in combination with a T290N variant, co-segregates with EKVP across several family generations

Using GAMMs to model trial-by-trial fluctuations in experimental data: more risks but hardly any benefit

Data from each subject in a repeated-measures experiment form a time series, which may include trial-by-trial fluctuations arising from human factors such as practice or fatigue. Concerns about the statistical implications of such effects have increased the popularity of Generalized Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs), a powerful technique for modeling wiggly patterns. We question these statistical concerns and investigate the costs and benefits of using GAMMs relative to linear mixed-effects models (LMEMs). In two sets of Monte Carlo simulations, LMEMs that ignored time-varying effects were no more prone to false positives than GAMMs. Although GAMMs generally boosted power for within-subject effects, they reduced power for between-subject effects, sometimes to a severe degree. Our results signal the importance of proper subject-level randomization as the main defense against statistical artifacts due to by-trial fluctuations

Mice harbouring an oculodentodigital dysplasia-linked Cx43 G60S mutation have severe hearing loss

Given the importance of connexin43 (Cx43, encoded by GJA1) function in the central nervous system and sensory organ processing, we proposed that it would also be crucial in auditory function. To that end, hearing was examined in two mouse models of oculodentodigital dysplasia that globally express GJA1 mutations resulting in mild or severe loss of Cx43 function. Although Cx43(I130T/+) mutant mice, with similar to 50% Cx43 channel function, did not have any hearing loss, Cx43(G60S/+) mutant mice, with similar to 20% Cx43 channel function, had severe hearing loss. There was no evidence of inner ear sensory hair cell loss, suggesting that the mechanism for Cx43-linked hearing loss lies downstream in the auditory pathway. Since evidence suggests that Cx26 function is essential for hearing and may be protective against noise-induced hearing loss, we challenged Cx43(I130T/+) mice with a loud noise and found that they had a similar susceptibility to noise-induced hearing loss to that found in controls, suggesting that decreased Cx43 function does not sensitize the mice for environmentally induced hearing loss. Taken together, this study suggests that Cx43 plays an important role in baseline hearing and is essential for auditory processing. This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper