Age Effects in L2 Grammar Processing as Revealed by ERPs and How (Not) to Study Them

In this study we investigate the effect of age of acquisition (AoA) on grammatical processing in second language learners as measured by event-related brain potentials (ERPs). We compare a traditional analysis involving the calculation of averages across a certain time window of the ERP waveform, analyzed with categorical groups (early vs. late), with a generalized additive modeling analysis, which allows us to take into account the full range of variability in both AoA and time. Sixty-six Slavic advanced learners of German listened to German sentences with correct and incorrect use of non-finite verbs and grammatical gender agreement. We show that the ERP signal depends on the AoA of the learner, as well as on the regularity of the structure under investigation. For gender agreement, a gradual change in processing strategies can be shown that varies by AoA, with younger learners showing a P600 and older learners showing a posterior negativity. For verb agreement, all learners show a P600 effect, irrespective of AoA. Based on their behavioral responses in an offline grammaticality judgment task, we argue that the late learners resort to computationally less efficient processing strategies when confronted with (lexically determined) syntactic constructions different from the L1. In addition, this study highlights the insights the explicit focus on the time course of the ERP signal in our analysis framework can offer compared to the traditional analysis

Sentence Comprehension and Its Association with Executive Functions in Patients with Parkinson's Disease

Coexistent impairments in executive functions and language comprehension in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have been repeatedly observed. In this study, the aim was to provide insights into the interaction between linguistic representation and processing and executive functioning. Therefore, sentence comprehension and executive functions were assessed in 28 Dutch-speaking PD patients and 28 healthy control subjects. Three aspects of the sentence materials were varied: (1) phrase structure complexity, (2) sentence length, and (3) picture congruence. PD patients with mild-to-moderate disease severity showed decreased sentence comprehension compared to healthy control subjects. The difficulties encountered by PD patients were not limited to one aspect of the sentence materials. The same pattern of results was present in healthy control subjects. Deficits in set-switching were specifically associated with the comprehension of passive sentences. Generally, our study confirms that there does not appear to be a language faculty encapsulated from the influence of executive functions

When Correction Turns Positive:Processing Corrective Prosody in Dutch

Current research on spoken language does not provide a consistent picture as to whether prosody, the melody and rhythm of speech, conveys a specific meaning. Perception studies show that English listeners assign meaning to prosodic patterns, and, for instance, associate some accents with contrast, whereas Dutch listeners behave more controversially. In two ERP studies we tested how Dutch listeners process words carrying two types of accents, which either provided new information (new information accents) or corrected information (corrective accents), both in single sentences (experiment 1) and after corrective and new information questions (experiment 2). In both experiments corrective accents elicited a sustained positivity as compared to new information accents, which started earlier in context than in single sentences. The positivity was not modulated by the nature of the preceding question, suggesting that the underlying neural mechanism likely reflects the construction of an interpretation to the accented word, either by identifying an alternative in context or by inferring it when no context is present. Our experimental results provide strong evidence for inferential processes related to prosodic contours in Dutch

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Second language processing:When are first and second languages processed similarly?

International audienceIn this article we investigate the effects of first language (L1) on second language (L2) neural processing for two grammatical constructions (verbal domain dependency and grammatical gender), focusing on the event-related potential P600 effect, which has been found in both L1 and L2 processing. Native Dutch speakers showed a P600 effect for both constructions tested. However, in L2 Dutch (with German or a Romance language as L1) a P600 effect only occurred if L1 and L2 were similar. German speakers show a P600 effect to both constructions. Romance speakers only show a P600 effect within the verbal domain. We interpret these findings as showing that with similar rule-governed processing routines in L1 and L2 (verbal domain processing for both German and Romance speakers), similar neural processing is possible in L1 and L2. However, lexically-driven constructions that are not the same in L1 and L2 (grammatical gender for Romance speakers) do not result in similar neural processing in L1 and L2 as measured by the P600 effect

Predictability speeds up the re-analysis process: An ERP investigation of gender agreement and cloze probability

To investigate the timing relationship between lexical access and later processes, the present study compared event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to spoken Dutch sentences that were either correct or contained gender agreement violations on the article or adjective preceding the noun. The target noun was either unpredictable from the preceding sentence information (low cloze) or was preceded by a highly constraining context (high cloze) to investigate whether contextual constraints influence morphological processing of grammatical gender in real-time. In line with previous findings, gender violations elicited a clear P600 indicating processes of repair or re-analysis evoked by the gender mismatch. Low cloze items, independent of the gender mismatch, elicited an increased N400 reflecting lexical access and semantic integration difficulty. Interestingly, an interaction between gender mismatch and cloze probability occurred in the early portion of the P600 time window, with the P600 starting significantly later in the low cloze conditions as compared to the high cloze conditions, although they had the same amplitude in the later part of the window. These results indicate that semantic expectancy facilitates the late processes sensitive to syntactic violations, suggesting an interplay between semantics and syntax in later stages of processing and supporting interactive accounts of language comprehension. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd

Time is of the essence: processing temporal connectives during reading

An important study by Münte, Schiltz, and Kutas [Nature 395 (1998) 71-73] using ERPs (=Event-Related brain Potentials) suggested that sentences starting with the temporal connective before are more taxing for working memory than sentences starting with after, as evidenced by a slow negative shift for before sentences. According to Münte et al., before sentences present events out of the correct chronological order, as in Before the author submitted the paper [=second event], the journal changed its policy [=first event]. In order to come up with the correct discourse representation of the sentence, the correct chronological order has to be restored, leading to extra memory load. In the present experiments using a self-paced reading paradigm it will be shown that before sentences are not more difficult to process than after sentences, but that they are even read faster than after sentences. In addition, it is shown that before sentences in which events are presented in the correct chronological order, as in The journal changed its policy [=first event], before the author submitted the paper [=second event] are read more slowly than corresponding sentences with after. Implications for Münte et al.'s theory are discussed and objectives for future research are formulated