623 research outputs found
Affective iconic words benefit from additional soundâmeaning integration in the left amygdala
Recent studies have shown that a similarity between sound and meaning of a word (i.e., iconicity) can help more readily access the meaning of that word, but the neural mechanisms underlying this beneficial role of iconicity in semantic processing remain largely unknown. In an fMRI study, we focused on the affective domain and examined whether affective iconic words (e.g., high arousal in both sound and meaning) activate additional brain regions that integrate emotional information from different domains (i.e., sound and meaning). In line with our hypothesis, affective iconic words, compared to their nonâiconic counterparts, elicited additional BOLD responses in the left amygdala known for its role in multimodal representation of emotions. Functional connectivity analyses revealed that the observed amygdalar activity was modulated by an interaction of iconic condition and activations in two hubs representative for processing sound (left superior temporal gyrus) and meaning (left inferior frontal gyrus) of words. These results provide a neural explanation for the facilitative role of iconicity in language processing and indicate that language users are sensitive to the interaction between sound and meaning aspect of words, suggesting the existence of iconicity as a general property of human language
Distinguishing underlying and surface variation patterns in speech perception
This study examines the relationship between patterns of variation and speech perception using two English prefixes: âin-â/âim-â and âun-â. In natural speech, âin-â varies due to an underlying process of phonological assimilation, while âun-â shows a pattern of surface variation, assimilating before labial stems. In a go/no-go lexical decision experiment, subjects were presented a set of âmispronouncedâ stimuli in which the prefix nasal was altered (replacing [n] with [m], or vice versa), in addition to real words with unaltered prefixes. No significant differences between prefixes were found in responses to unaltered words. In mispronounced items, responses to âun-â forms were faster and more accurate than to âin-â forms, although a significant interaction mitigated this effect in labial contexts. These results suggest the regularity of variation patterns has consequences for the lexical specification of words, and argues against radical underspecification accounts which argue for a maximally sparse lexicon
On the rate of quantum ergodicity in Euclidean billiards
For a large class of quantized ergodic flows the quantum ergodicity theorem
due to Shnirelman, Zelditch, Colin de Verdi\`ere and others states that almost
all eigenfunctions become equidistributed in the semiclassical limit. In this
work we first give a short introduction to the formulation of the quantum
ergodicity theorem for general observables in terms of pseudodifferential
operators and show that it is equivalent to the semiclassical eigenfunction
hypothesis for the Wigner function in the case of ergodic systems. Of great
importance is the rate by which the quantum mechanical expectation values of an
observable tend to their mean value. This is studied numerically for three
Euclidean billiards (stadium, cosine and cardioid billiard) using up to 6000
eigenfunctions. We find that in configuration space the rate of quantum
ergodicity is strongly influenced by localized eigenfunctions like bouncing
ball modes or scarred eigenfunctions. We give a detailed discussion and
explanation of these effects using a simple but powerful model. For the rate of
quantum ergodicity in momentum space we observe a slower decay. We also study
the suitably normalized fluctuations of the expectation values around their
mean, and find good agreement with a Gaussian distribution.Comment: 40 pages, LaTeX2e. This version does not contain any figures. A
version with all figures can be obtained from
http://www.physik.uni-ulm.de/theo/qc/ (File:
http://www.physik.uni-ulm.de/theo/qc/ulm-tp/tp97-8.ps.gz) In case of any
problems contact Arnd B\"acker (e-mail: [email protected]) or Roman
Schubert (e-mail: [email protected]
The acquisition of Sign Language: The impact of phonetic complexity on phonology
Research into the effect of phonetic complexity on phonological acquisition has a long history in spoken languages. This paper considers the effect of phonetics on phonological development in a signed language. We report on an experiment in which nonword-repetition methodology was adapted so as to examine in a systematic way how phonetic complexity in two phonological parameters of signed languages â handshape and movement â affects the perception and articulation of signs. Ninety-one Deaf children aged 3â11 acquiring British Sign Language (BSL) and 46 hearing nonsigners aged 6â11 repeated a set of 40 nonsense signs. For Deaf children, repetition accuracy improved with age, correlated with wider BSL abilities, and was lowest for signs that were phonetically complex. Repetition accuracy was correlated with fine motor skills for the youngest children. Despite their lower repetition accuracy, the hearing group were similarly affected by phonetic complexity, suggesting that common visual and motoric factors are at play when processing linguistic information in the visuo-gestural modality
17 ways to say yes:Toward nuanced tone of voice in AAC and speech technology
People with complex communication needs who use speech-generating devices have very little expressive control over their tone of voice. Despite its importance in human interaction, the issue of tone of voice remains all but absent from AAC research and development however. In this paper, we describe three interdisciplinary projects, past, present and future: The critical design collection Six Speaking Chairs has provoked deeper discussion and inspired a social model of tone of voice; the speculative concept Speech Hedge illustrates challenges and opportunities in designing more expressive user interfaces; the pilot project Tonetable could enable participatory research and seed a research network around tone of voice. We speculate that more radical interactions might expand frontiers of AAC and disrupt speech technology as a whole
The compound Poisson limit ruling periodic extreme behaviour of non-uniformly hyperbolic dynamics
We prove that the distributional limit of the normalised number of returns to
small neighbourhoods of periodic points of non-uniformly hyperbolic dynamical
systems is compound Poisson. The returns to small balls around a fixed point in
the phase space correspond to the occurrence of rare events, or exceedances of
high thresholds, so that there is a connection between the laws of Return Times
Statistics and Extreme Value Laws. The fact that the fixed point in the phase
space is a repelling periodic point implies that there is a tendency for the
exceedances to appear in clusters whose average sizes is given by the Extremal
Index, which depends on the expansion of the system at the periodic point.
We recall that for generic points, the exceedances, in the limit, are
singular and occur at Poisson times. However, around periodic points, the
picture is different: the respective point processes of exceedances converge to
a compound Poisson process, so instead of single exceedances, we have entire
clusters of exceedances occurring at Poisson times with a geometric
distribution ruling its multiplicity.
The systems to which our results apply include: general piecewise expanding
maps of the interval (Rychlik maps), maps with indifferent fixed points
(Manneville-Pomeau maps) and Benedicks-Carleson quadratic maps.Comment: To appear in Communications in Mathematical Physic
Natural equilibrium states for multimodal maps
This paper is devoted to the study of the thermodynamic formalism for a class
of real multimodal maps. This class contains, but it is larger than,
Collet-Eckmann. For a map in this class, we prove existence and uniqueness of
equilibrium states for the geometric potentials , for the largest
possible interval of parameters . We also study the regularity and convexity
properties of the pressure function, completely characterising the first order
phase transitions. Results concerning the existence of absolutely continuous
invariant measures with respect to the Lebesgue measure are also obtained
Exploring the measurement of markedness and its relationship with other linguistic variables
Antonym pair members can be differentiated by each word's markedness-that distinction attributable to the presence or absence of features at morphological or semantic levels. Morphologically marked words incorporate their unmarked counterpart with additional morphs (e.g., "unlucky" vs. "lucky"); properties used to determine semantically marked words (e.g., "short" vs. "long") are less clearly defined. Despite extensive theoretical scrutiny, the lexical properties of markedness have received scant empirical study. The current paper employs an antonym sequencing approach to measure markedness: establishing markedness probabilities for individual words and evaluating their relationship with other lexical properties (e.g., length, frequency, valence). Regression analyses reveal that markedness probability is, as predicted, related to affixation and also strongly related to valence. Our results support the suggestion that antonym sequence is reflected in discourse, and further analysis demonstrates that markedness probabilities, derived from the antonym sequencing task, reflect the ordering of antonyms within natural language. In line with the Pollyanna Hypothesis, we argue that markedness is closely related to valence; language users demonstrate a tendency to present words evaluated positively ahead of those evaluated negatively if given the choice. Future research should consider the relationship of markedness and valence, and the influence of contextual information in determining which member of an antonym pair is marked or unmarked within discourse
Trace Formulae and Spectral Statistics for Discrete Laplacians on Regular Graphs (I)
Trace formulae for d-regular graphs are derived and used to express the
spectral density in terms of the periodic walks on the graphs under
consideration. The trace formulae depend on a parameter w which can be tuned
continuously to assign different weights to different periodic orbit
contributions. At the special value w=1, the only periodic orbits which
contribute are the non back- scattering orbits, and the smooth part in the
trace formula coincides with the Kesten-McKay expression. As w deviates from
unity, non vanishing weights are assigned to the periodic walks with
back-scatter, and the smooth part is modified in a consistent way. The trace
formulae presented here are the tools to be used in the second paper in this
sequence, for showing the connection between the spectral properties of
d-regular graphs and the theory of random matrices.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figure
Political hashtag publics and counter-visuality: a case study of #fertilityday in Italy
In 2016 the Italian health ministry launched the âFertility Dayâ campaign, aimed at tackling Italyâs low birth rate. Under the accusation of delivering sexist and racist messages, the campaign became a trending topic on Twitter, and a protest was launched to be held during Fertility Day. By applying a combination of digital methods and visual content analysis to the #fertilityday Twitter stream, this paper contributes to existing research on the deliberative strength of political hashtag publics, with a particular focus on their power structures, communication patterns and visual content use. Findings on gatekeeping dynamics downsize optimistic views on the democratising potential of Twitterâs socio-technical infrastructure as they point to the emergence of online satirical media and âtweetstarsâ â along with mainstream news mediaâ as main producers of spreadable content, with ordinary users only surfacing when traditional media elites and new satirical actors lack or lose interest in the debate. Results confirm that political hashtag publics follow acute event communication patterns, with users highly engaged in retweeting and referencing external material and visual content playing a key role in these gatewatching practices. The transient counter-visuality â or critical stance â of tweets with user-manipulated images, however, also suggests that the deliberative potential of these publics is not easily sustainable over time
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