34 research outputs found
Commentary: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation over Left Inferior Frontal and Posterior Temporal Cortex Disrupts Gesture-Speech Integration
Rapid invisible frequency tagging reveals nonlinear integration of auditory and visual information
Rapid invisible frequency tagging reveals nonlinear integration of auditory and visual information
Native and non-native listeners show similar yet distinct oscillatory dynamics when using gestures to access speech in noise
Listeners are often challenged by adverse listening conditions during language comprehension induced by external factors, such as noise, but also internal factors, such as being a non-native listener. Visible cues, such as semantic information conveyed by iconic gestures, can enhance language comprehension in such situations. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG) we investigated whether spatiotemporal oscillatory dynamics can predict a listener's benefit of iconic gestures during language comprehension in both internally (non-native versus native listeners) and externally (clear/degraded speech) induced adverse listening conditions. Proficient non-native speakers of Dutch were presented with videos in which an actress uttered a degraded or clear verb, accompanied by a gesture or not, and completed a cued-recall task after every video. The behavioral and oscillatory results obtained from non-native listeners were compared to an MEG study where we presented the same stimuli to native listeners (Drijvers et al., 2018a). Non-native listeners demonstrated a similar gestural enhancement effect as native listeners, but overall scored significantly slower on the cued-recall task. In both native and non-native listeners, an alpha/beta power suppression revealed engagement of the extended language network, motor and visual regions during gestural enhancement of degraded speech comprehension, suggesting similar core processes that support unification and lexical access processes. An individual's alpha/beta power modulation predicted the gestural benefit a listener experienced during degraded speech comprehension. Importantly, however, non-native listeners showed less engagement of the mouth area of the primary somatosensory cortex, left insula (beta), LIFG and ATL (alpha) than native listeners, which suggests that non-native listeners might be hindered in processing the degraded phonological cues and coupling them to the semantic information conveyed by the gesture. Native and non-native listeners thus demonstrated similar yet distinct spatiotemporal oscillatory dynamics when recruiting visual cues to disambiguate degraded speech
Embodied Processing at Six Linguistic Granularity Levels: A Consensus Paper
Language processing is influenced by sensorimotor experiences. Here, we review behavioral evidence for embodied and grounded influences in language processing across six linguistic levels of granularity. We examine (a) sub-word features, discussing grounded influences on iconicity (systematic associations between word form and meaning); (b) words, discussing boundary conditions and generalizations for the simulation of color, sensory modality, and spatial position; (c) sentences, discussing boundary conditions and applications of action direction simulation; (d) texts, discussing how the teaching of simulation can improve comprehension in beginning readers; (e) conversations, discussing how multi-modal cues improve turn taking and alignment; and (f) text corpora, discussing how distributional semantic models can reveal how grounded and embodied knowledge is encoded in texts. These approaches are converging on a convincing account of the psychology of language, but at the same time, there are important criticisms of the embodied approach and of specific experimental paradigms. The surest way forward requires the adoption of a wide array of scientific methods. By providing complimentary evidence, a combination of multiple methods on various levels of granularity can help us gain a more complete understanding of the role of embodiment and grounding in language processing
DrijversOzyurekJensen_OscillatoryandTemporalDynamicsGesturalEnhancementDegradedSpeech.pdf
Poster on Oscillatory and Temporal Dynamics during Gestural Enhancement of Degraded Speec