The Influence of Native-Language Phonology on Lexical Access: Exemplar-Based Versus Abstract Lexical Entries

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Perceptual adjustment to time-compressed Speech: a cross-linguistic study

revious research has shown that, when hearers listen to artificially speeded speech, their performance improves over the course of 10-15 sentences, as if their perceptual system was "adapting" to these fast rates of speech. In this paper, we further investigate the mechanisms that are responsible for such effects. In Experiment 1, we report that, for bilingual speakers of Catalan and Spanish, exposure to compressed sentences in either language improves performance on sentences in the other language. Experiment 2 reports that Catalan/Spanish transfer of performance occurs even in monolingual speakers of Spanish who do not understand Catalan. In Experiment 3, we study another pair of languages--namely, English and French--and report no transfer of adaptation between these two languages for English-French bilinguals. Experiment 4, with monolingual English speakers, assesses transfer of adaptation from French, Dutch, and English toward English. Here we find that there is no adaptation from French and intermediate adaptation from Dutch. We discuss the locus of the adaptation to compressed speech and relate our findings to other cross-linguistic studies in speech perception

Catégories phonologiques et représentation des mots dans le développement lexical de l’enfant bilingue

Cet article analyse l’émergence des catégories contrastives dans le développement phonologique initial bilingue. On présente différents travaux qui, au cours de la première année de vie, ont évalué les capacités précoces de différentiation entre les langues de l’entourage, la discrimination des sons de la parole à l’étape pré-lexicale, la familiarité avec les patrons phonotactiques qui caractérisent la langue et la continuité entre toutes ces habilités précoces et leur utilisation dans la reconnaissance des premiers mots. La comparaison entre deux situations d’acquisition différentes, monolingue et bilingue, permet de constater le rôle de l’expérience perceptive dans l’organisation phonologique initiale. Les travaux analysés montrent que la capacité pour distinguer entre les deux langues de l’entourage, même quand elles ont des propriétés rythmiques très semblables, est possible dès l’age de 4 mois. Le processus de réorganisation perceptive, qui a lieu vers la fin de la première année de vie et qui montre le début de l’organisation contrastive de sons, suit un développement différent chez le bilingue en montrant un petit « retard » quand on le compare avec le monolingue. La connaissance des patrons phonotactiques suggère une prédominance linguistique chez le bilingue qui favorise la langue qui est plus présente dans l’entourage. Finalement, les travaux qui ont analysé la reconnaissance des mots familiers et leur format de représentation dans la deuxième année de vie montrent aussi un décalage temporel en ce qui concerne la représentation d’un contraste vocalique qui appartient à une des deux langues familières. On constate la spécificité du développement phonologique initial chez le bilingue qui doit faire des adaptations précises pour faire face à la nature plus riche et complexe de son input linguistique.This paper analyses the building of contrastive sound categories in bilingual’s early phonological development. Research focused on early capacity to differentiate between the languages in the environment, sound discrimination in the prelexical infant, the development of phonotactic sensitivities and the continuity between these early abilities and their use in familiar word recognition in the second year of life, are successively revised. The comparison between two different language acquisition situations, monolingual and bilingual, offers the possibility to analyse the role of linguistic exposure in early phonological organisation. Research results indicate that the ability to distinguish between the languages is at place by 4 months of age, even for languages with similar rhythmic properties. Perceptual reorganization processes that take place by the end of the first year of life and that show the initial building of contrastive sound categories follow a different time-course in bilingual acquisition, when compared with monolingual data. Growing knowledge of phonotactic patterns even suggests the existence of language dominance, favouring the most frequent language in their environment. Finally, work dealing with familiar word recognition and format of representation by age two suggests a possible delay concerning the representation of a vowel contrast that belongs to one of the languages in the environment. Converging evidence from all the work revised supports the specificity of early phonological development in bilingual acquisition as a consequence of particular adaptations that take place in order to cope with the richer and more complex nature of their linguistic input

The impact of bilingualism on the executive control and orienting networks of attention

The main objective of this article is to provide new evidence regarding the impact of bilingualism on the attentional system. We approach this goal by assessing the effects of bilingualism on the executive and orienting networks of attention. In Experiment 1, we compared young bilingual and monolingual adults in a numerical version of the Stroop task, which allowed the assessment of the executive control network. We observed more efficient performance in the former group, which showed both reduced Stroop Interference and larger Stroop Facilitation Effects relative to the latter. Conversely, Experiment 2, conducted with a visual cueing task in order to assess the orienting network, revealed similar Cueing Facilitation and Inhibition (Inhibition of Return - IOR) Effects for both groups of speakers. The implications of the results of these two experiments for the origin and boundaries of the bilingual impact on the attentional system are discussed

First- and second-language phonological representations in the mental lexicon

Performance-based studies on the psychological nature of linguistic competence can conceal significant differences in the brain processes that underlie native versus nonnative knowledge of language. Here we report results from the brain activity of very proficient early bilinguals making a lexical decision task that illustrates this point. Two groups of SpanishCatalan early bilinguals (Spanish-dominant and Catalan-dominant) were asked to decide whether a given form was a Catalan word or not. The nonwords were based on real words, with one vowel changed. In the experimental stimuli, the vowel change involved a Catalan-specific contrast that previous research had shown to be difficult for Spanish natives to perceive. In the control stimuli, the vowel switch involved contrasts common to Spanish and Catalan. The results indicated that the groups of bilinguals did not differ in their behavioral and event-related brain potential measurements for the control stimuli; both groups made very few errors and showed a larger N400 component for control nonwords than for control words. However, significant differences were observed for the experimental stimuli across groups: Specifically, Spanish-dominant bilinguals showed great difficulty in rejecting experimental nonwords. Indeed, these participants not only showed very high error rates for these stimuli, but also did not show an error-related negativity effect in their erroneous nonword decisions. However, both groups of bilinguals showed a larger correctrelated negativity when making correct decisions about the experimental nonwords. The results suggest that although some aspects of a second language system may show a remarkable lack of plasticity (like the acquisition of some foreign contrasts), first-language representations seem to be more dynamic in their capacity of adapting and incorporating new information.

Walnuts, Long-Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids, and Adolescent Brain Development: Protocol for the Walnuts Smart Snack Dietary Intervention Trial

Background: Adolescence, when the most complex behaviors are refined to adult sophistication, represents a major window of opportunity and vulnerability for neuropsychological development. To support and protect this complex and active brain growth, different nutritional components considered essential need to be acquired from the diet. For instance, omega-3 fatty acids are mainly obtained from seafood, seeds, and walnuts. Known for their rich lipid profile, walnuts contain sizable amounts of an essential fatty acid, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), the vegetable omega-3 fatty acid that is the precursor of two longer-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (omega-3 PUFA): docosahexaenoic (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic (EPA) acids. While there is growing evidence of neuropsychological improvements in the young developing brain associated with omega-3 PUFA intake, few studies have examined whether consuming walnuts during adolescence entails similar beneficial effects. There is a need to further explore the ways in which walnuts influence youthful brain function, particularly for the long-term. Thus, we designed the WALNUTs study (WSS), a population-based randomized controlled trial conducted in adolescents in Barcelona, Spain. We hypothesize that walnut intake will increase omega-3 PUFA tissue availability (particularly ALA) to a level that enhances the neuropsychological development during adolescence. Methodology/Design: We conducted a 6-month population-based randomized controlled trial in teenagers (n = 800) and we aimed to determine the effectiveness of the intervention (four walnuts per day, or 30 kernel g, ~1.5g of ALA) in enhancing brain neuropsychological and socio-emotional development compared to a control group with no walnut intervention. Before randomization, different neuropsychological tests were recorded for all participants, and blood samples (in a subsample of participants) were collected to measure omega-3 PUFA levels at baseline, and all again, after randomization and the intervention. The data is now collected and we will conduct linear regression models to assess the effect of the intervention. Discussion: The WALNUTs (WSS) study results will allow us to better understand the role of plant-based omega-3 PUFA intake from regular walnut consumption on neuropsychological development during adolescence. Results could be translated into nutritional public health recommendations targeting teenagers. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health # NCT02590848. Retrospectively registered 29/10/2015

Participación educativa

Monográfico con el título: "La investigación sobre el cerebro y la mejora de la educación".Resumen basado en el de la publicación.En los primeros meses de vida la interrelación entre el desarrollo cognitivo y cerebral es particularmente evidente. Los avances tecnológicos en la capacidad para obtener imágenes del cerebro en vivo, como por ejemplo a través de la resonancia magnética funcional, han permitido una mejor comprensión de la complejidad del desarrollo cerebral. Se presenta una breve introducción a conceptos básicos sobre cómo cambia el cerebro como producto de la programación genética y la interacción con el entorno. El desarrollo temprano del lenguaje ejemplifica de manera clara diversos aspectos de dicha interacción. Aunque en numerosos campos es temprano para aplicar una buena parte de los conocimientos neurocientíficos a la escuela, un conocimiento fundamentado (y libre de todos los neuromitos y palabrería pseudocientífica) sin duda ayudará a los profesionales de la educación a comprender mejor el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje.ES

Stress placement and word segmentation by Spanish speakers

Several studies have shown that the stress pattern of one's native language is applied to new linguistic stimuli. Regarding the segmentation of artificial synthesized speech, this idea has been supported by experiments with languages where the stress pattern coincides with word boundaries (i.e. English, Finnish and Dutch). In this study, we present data on speech segmentation with native Spanish speakers whose stress pattern would mark the penultimate syllable of words. Results show that to stress the middle syllable of trisyllabic words in an artificial speech stream does not facilitate segmentation as would be predicted. Possible explanations of these results are explored as related to the interaction of statistical and stress cues in speech segmentation

Before perceptual narrowing: the emergence of the native sounds of language

The present study investigates the precursors of representations of phonemes in 4.5-month-olds. The emergence of phonemes has been mainly studied within the framework of perceptual narrowing, that is, infants tuning to their native language and losing sensitivity to non-native speech. One of the mechanisms behind this phenomenon is distributional learning. In this article, we tested the preference of 4.5-month-old infants using lists of pseudowords that resemble the vowel distribution of the native or a non-native language. We found that infants prefer listening to the lists mirroring the native language. The results suggest that infants can extract vowel information from novel stimuli, and they can map it on pre-existing knowledge on vowels that leads to a preference for the native lists.Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Grant/Award Number: Academia 2019 award; Catalan Government, Grant/ Award Number: FI2018, SGR 2017-268, FI-9015-456763; Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Grant/ Award Number: PGC2018-101831-B-I0