Bilingualism and increased attention to speech: Evidence from event-related potentials

A number of studies have shown that from an early age, bilinguals outperform their monolingual peers on executive control tasks. We previously found that bilingual children and adults also display greater attention to unexpected language switches within speech. Here, we investigated the effect of a bilingual upbringing on speech perception in one language. We recorded monolingual and bilingual toddlers' event-related potentials (ERPs) to spoken words preceded by pictures. Words matching the picture prime elicited an early frontal positivity in bilingual participants only, whereas later ERP amplitudes associated with semantic processing did not differ between groups. These results add to the growing body of evidence that bilingualism increases overall attention during speech perception whilst semantic integration is unaffected

ERPs reveal the time-course of aberrant visual-phonological binding in developmental dyslexia

New evidence is accumulating for a deficit in binding visual-orthographic information with the corresponding phonological code in developmental dyslexia. Here, we identify the mechanisms underpinning this deficit using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in dyslexic and control adult readers performing a letter-matching task. In each trial, a printed letter was presented synchronously with an auditory letter name. Incongruent (mismatched), frequent trials were interleaved with congruent (matched) infrequent target pairs, which participants were asked to report by pressing a button. In critical trials, incongruent letter pairs were mismatched but confusable in terms of their visual or phonological features. Typical readers showed early detection of deviant trials, indicated by larger modulation in the range of the phonological mismatch negativity (PMN) compared with standard trials. This was followed by stronger modulation of the P3b wave for visually confusable deviants and an increased lateralized readiness potential (LRP) for phonological deviants, compared with standards. In contrast, dyslexic readers showed reduced sensitivity to deviancy in the PMN range. Responses to deviants in the P3b range indicated normal letter recognition processes, but the LRP calculation revealed a specific impairment for visual-orthographic information during response selection in dyslexia. In a follow-up experiment using an analogous non-lexical task in the same participants, we found no reading-group differences, indicating a degree of specificity to over-learnt visual-phonological binding. Our findings indicate early insensitivity to visual-phonological binding in developmental dyslexia, coupled with difficulty selecting the correct orthographic code

The impact of response congruence on speech production: An event-related potentials study

A puzzling finding in the speech production literature is the facilitation of categorically related distractors in a superordinate level naming task. The context is in this case response congruent, because application of the task instruction to the context would lead to the correct response. This study investigates the time-course of response congruence effects in speech production using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants overtly named target words that were overlaid on context pictures with either their superordinate category level name or their associated function, while their response times and ERPs were recorded. Behavioural results replicate the facilitating effect of response congruence. The ERP results showed that the N2 was larger for a response incongruent than congruent context, and this effect correlated with the behavioural pattern of results. This key finding suggests that response incongruence is associated with a conflict-monitoring response which drives the behavioural effect. Further, N400 amplitude was not modulated by response congruence, showing that its effect appears confined to the conceptualisation phase. Finally, P3 modulations mirrored those in RTs, but unlike the N2 effect, they did not correlate with RTs. This suggests that, although the facilitating effect of response congruence is confined to the conceptualisation phase of speech production, response incongruent representations may remain active during later processing stages, or that this late effect of response congruence reflects conflict resolve. Implications for models of speech production are discussed

Semantic context effects in word production : the role of message congruency

The main question that the research presented in this dissertation is focused on, is why compared to unrelated context words, related context words induce interference in basic level picture naming but facilitation in picture categorization (Glaser & Düngelhoff, 1984). It is argued that because related context words induce lexical interference compared to unrelated context words in both basic-level picture naming and category-level picture naming, another strongly facilitating semantic context effect must be present in the categorization task in order to account for the semantic facilitation that is observed in this task. This effect labeled “message congruency” was assumed to arise when the automatic processing of the context leads to the activation of the concept that is required for the verbal response. The proposed mechanism responsible for the message congruency effect is the co-activation of the sought-for concept by the message congruent context. In the model of word production that is proposed, a context word can induce semantic facilitation due to spreading of activation, facilitation due to message congruency and semantic interference in lexical selection. With this model, the polarity of the semantic context effect in various tasks can be explained. The main question that the research presented in this dissertation is focused on, is why compared to unrelated context words, related context words induce interference in basic level picture naming but facilitation in picture categorization (Glaser & Düngelhoff, 1984). It is argued that because related context words induce lexical interference compared to unrelated context words in both basic-level picture naming and category-level picture naming, another strongly facilitating semantic context effect must be present in the categorization task in order to account for the semantic facilitation that is observed in this task. This effect labeled “message congruency” was assumed to arise when the automatic processing of the context leads to the activation of the concept that is required for the verbal response. The proposed mechanism responsible for the message congruency effect is the co-activation of the sought-for concept by the message congruent context. In the model of word production that is proposed, a context word can induce semantic facilitation due to spreading of activation, facilitation due to message congruency and semantic interference in lexical selection. With this model, the polarity of the semantic context effect in various tasks can be explained. The main question that the research presented in this dissertation is focused on, is why compared to unrelated context words, related context words induce interference in basic level picture naming but facilitation in picture categorization (Glaser & Düngelhoff, 1984). It is argued that because related context words induce lexical interference compared to unrelated context words in both basic-level picture naming and category-level picture naming, another strongly facilitating semantic context effect must be present in the categorization task in order to account for the semantic facilitation that is observed in this task. This effect labeled “message congruency” was assumed to arise when the automatic processing of the context leads to the activation of the concept that is required for the verbal response. The proposed mechanism responsible for the message congruency effect is the co-activation of the sought-for concept by the message congruent context. In the model of word production that is proposed, a context word can induce semantic facilitation due to spreading of activation, facilitation due to message congruency and semantic interference in lexical selection. With this model, the polarity of the semantic context effect in various tasks can be explained.LEI Universiteit LeidenFSW - Action Control - Ou

On the road to somewhere: Brain potentials reflect language effects on motion event perception

Recent studies have identified neural correlates of language effects on perception in static domains of experience such as colour and objects. The generalization of such effects to dynamic domains like motion events remains elusive. Here, we focus on grammatical differences between languages relevant for the description of motion events and their impact on visual scene perception. Two groups of native speakers of German or English were presented with animated videos featuring a dot travelling along a trajectory towards a geometrical shape (endpoint). English is a language with grammatical aspect in which attention is drawn to trajectory and endpoint of motion events equally. German, in contrast, is a non-aspect language which highlights endpoints. We tested the comparative perceptual saliency of trajectory and endpoint of motion events by presenting motion event animations (primes) followed by a picture symbolising the event (target): In 75% of trials, the animation was followed by a mismatching picture (both trajectory and endpoint were different); in 10% of trials, only the trajectory depicted in the picture matched the prime; in 10% of trials, only the endpoint matched the prime; and in 5% of trials both trajectory and endpoint were matching, which was the condition requiring a response from the participant. In Experiment 1 we recorded event-related brain potentials elicited by the picture in native speakers of German and native speakers of English. German participants exhibited a larger P3 wave in the endpoint match than the trajectory match condition, whereas English speakers showed no P3 amplitude difference between conditions. In Experiment 2 participants performed a behavioural motion matching task using the same stimuli as those used in Experiment 1. German and English participants did not differ in response times showing that motion event verbalisation cannot readily account for the difference in P3 amplitude found in the first experiment. We argue that, even in a non-verbal context, the grammatical properties of the native language and associated sentence-level patterns of event encoding influence motion event perception, such that attention is automatically drawn towards aspects highlighted by the grammar

Language and Culture modulate online Semantic Processing

Language has been shown to influence non-linguistic cognitive operations such as colour perception, object categorization and motion event perception. Here, we show that language also modulates higher level processing, such as semantic knowledge. Using event-related brain potentials, we show that highly fluent Welsh-English bilinguals require significantly less processing effort when reading sentences in Welsh which contain factually correct information about Wales, than when reading sentences containing the same information presented in English. Crucially, culturally irrelevant information was processed similarly in both Welsh and English. Our findings show that even in highly proficient bilinguals, language interacts with factors associated with personal identity, such as culture, to modulate online semantic processing

Symposium review : Future of housing for dairy cattle

The objective of this review was to describe recent changes and expected developments in housing systems for dairy cows. These new developments should create an appropriate production environment for modern high-producing dairy cows and stimulate dairy farming-related developments in management, agro-technology, and equipment. Increased labor efficiency has been an important driver of the change from tie-stall barns to cubicle barns (also known as freestall barns). In future housing systems, the natural behavior of cows, climate control, emissions of ammonia and greenhouse gases, reuse of waste, manure quality, the aesthetics of buildings in the landscape, and capital efficiency are becoming increasingly important elements. To address future requirements, new concepts beyond cubicle barns must be developed. Freewalk housing systems; that is, loose housing systems without cubicles, would meet some of these future demands. These systems operate with composting bedding material or artificial permeable floors as lying and walking areas. However, these barns are still in development. Combinations of cubicle and freewalk housing systems, together with other techniques being developed, might become a major future housing system. Other techniques and systems that are being explored according to sustainability criteria include the multi-climate shed, the CowToilet (Hanskamp AgroTech, Doetinchem, the Netherlands) to separate feces and urine, and multifunctional buildings. These buildings and techniques can be part of land-based or, less commonly, city-based farming systems, such as floating farms.</p