Mixing the stimulus list in bilingual lexical decision turns cognate facilitation effects into mirrored inhibition effects

To test the BIA+ and Multilink models’ accounts of how bilinguals process words with different degrees of cross-linguistic orthographic and semantic overlap, we conducted two experiments manipulating stimulus list composition. Dutch-English late bilinguals performed two English lexical decision tasks including the same set of cognates, interlingual homographs, English control words, and pseudowords. In one task, half of the pseudowords were replaced with Dutch words, requiring a ‘no’ response. This change from pure to mixed language list context was found to turn cognate facilitation effects into inhibition. Relative to control words, larger effects were found for cognate pairs with an increasing cross-linguistic form overlap. Identical cognates produced considerably larger effects than non-identical cognates, supporting their special status in the bilingual lexicon. Response patterns for different item types are accounted for in terms of the items’ lexical representation and their binding to ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses in pure vs mixed lexical decision

The influence of conceptual (mis)match on collaborative referring in dialogue

When two dialogue partners need to refer to something, they jointly negotiate which referring expression should be used. If needed, the chosen referring expression is then reused throughout the interaction, which potentially has a direct, positive impact on subsequent communication. The purpose of this study was to determine if the way in which the partners view, or conceptualise, the referent under discussion, affects referring expression negotiation and subsequent communication. A matching task was preceded by an individual task during which participants were required to describe their conceptualisations of abstract tangram pictures. The results revealed that participants found it more difficult to converge on single referring expression during the matching task when they initially held different conceptualisations of the pictures. This had a negative impact on the remainder of the task. These findings are discussed in light of the shared versus mutual knowledge distinction, highlighting how the former directly contributes to the formation of the latter

Finding common ground: On the neural mechanisms of communicative language production

Contains fulltext : 167549.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Radboud University, 29 maart 2017Promotor : Hagoort, P. Co-promotor : Willems, R.M.150 p

Distinguishable memory retrieval networks for collaboratively and non-collaboratively learned information

Contains fulltext : 179964.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Learning often occurs in communicative and collaborative settings, yet almost all research into the neural basis of memory relies on participants encoding and retrieving information on their own. We investigated whether learning linguistic labels in a collaborative context at least partly relies on cognitively and neurally distinct representations, as compared to learning in an individual context. Healthy human participants learned labels for sets of abstract shapes in three different tasks. They came up with labels with another person in a collaborative communication task (collaborative condition), by themselves (individual condition), or were given pre-determined unrelated labels to learn by themselves (arbitrary condition). Immediately after learning, participants retrieved and produced the labels aloud during a communicative task in the MRI scanner. The fMRI results show that the retrieval of collaboratively generated labels as compared to individually learned labels engages brain regions involved in understanding others (mentalizing or theory of mind) and autobiographical memory, including the medial prefrontal cortex, the right temporoparietal junction and the precuneus. This study is the first to show that collaboration during encoding affects the neural networks involved in retrieval.10 p

Taking common ground into account: Specifying the role of the mentalizing network in communicative language production

Item does not contain fulltextSeveral studies have shown that communicative language production as compared to non-communicative language production recruits parts of the mentalizing or theory of mind network, yet the exact role of this network in communication remains underspecified. In this study, we therefore aimed to test under what conditions the mentalizing network contributes to communicative language production. We were especially interested in distinguishing between situations in which speakers have to consider which information they do or do not share with their addressee (common vs. privileged ground information). We therefore manipulated whether speakers had to distinguish between common and privileged ground in order to communicate efficiently with the listener, in addition to comparing language production in a communicative and a non-communicative context. Participants performed a referential communicative game in the MRI-scanner as well as a similar, non-communicative task. We found that the medial prefrontal cortex, a core region of the mentalizing network, is especially sensitive to communicative contexts in which speakers have to take their addressee’s needs into account in order to communicate efficiently. In addition, we found neural differences between the communicative and the non-communicative settings before speakers started to plan their utterances, suggesting that they continuously update common ground in a communicative context.nul

Taking common ground into account: Specifying the role of the mentalizing network in communicative language production

Several studies have shown that communicative language production as compared to non-communicative language production recruits parts of the mentalizing or theory of mind network, yet the exact role of this network in communication remains underspecified. In this study, we therefore aimed to test under what conditions the mentalizing network contributes to communicative language production. We were especially interested in distinguishing between situations in which speakers have to consider which information they do or do not share with their addressee (common vs. privileged ground information). We therefore manipulated whether speakers had to distinguish between common and privileged ground in order to communicate efficiently with the listener, in addition to comparing language production in a communicative and a non-communicative context. Participants performed a referential communicative game in the MRI-scanner as well as a similar, non-communicative task. We found that the medial prefrontal cortex, a core region of the mentalizing network, is especially sensitive to communicative contexts in which speakers have to take their addressee’s needs into account in order to communicate efficiently. In addition, we found neural differences between the communicative and the non-communicative settings before speakers started to plan their utterances, suggesting that they continuously update common ground in a communicative context

Bestaat er een talenknobbel? Over taal in ons brein

Wanneer iemand goed is in het spreken van meerdere talen, wordt wel gezegd dat zo iemand een talenknobbel heeft. Iedereen weet dat dat niet letterlijk bedoeld is: iemand met een talenknobbel herkennen we niet aan een grote bult op zijn hoofd. Toch dacht men vroeger wel degelijk dat mensen een letterlijke talenknobbel konden ontwikkelen. Een goed ontwikkeld taalvermogen zou gepaard gaan met het groeien van het hersengebied dat hiervoor verantwoordelijk was. Dit deel van het brein zou zelfs zo groot kunnen worden dat het van binnenuit tegen de schedel drukte, met name rond de ogen. Nu weten we wel beter. Maar waar in het brein bevindt de taal zich dan wel precies

Taking common ground into account: Specifying the role of the mentalizing network in communicative language production

Contains fulltext : 196484.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Several studies have shown that communicative language production as compared to non-communicative language production recruits parts of the mentalizing or theory of mind network, yet the exact role of this network in communication remains underspecified. In this study, we therefore aimed to test under what conditions the mentalizing network contributes to communicative language production. We were especially interested in distinguishing between situations in which speakers have to consider which information they do or do not share with their addressee (common vs. privileged ground information). We therefore manipulated whether speakers had to distinguish between common and privileged ground in order to communicate efficiently with the listener, in addition to comparing language production in a communicative and a non-communicative context. Participants performed a referential communicative game in the MRI-scanner as well as a similar, non-communicative task. We found that the medial prefrontal cortex, a core region of the mentalizing network, is especially sensitive to communicative contexts in which speakers have to take their addressee’s needs into account in order to communicate efficiently. In addition, we found neural differences between the communicative and the non-communicative settings before speakers started to plan their utterances, suggesting that they continuously update common ground in a communicative context.21 p

Taking the listener into account: Computing common ground requires mentalising

In order to communicate efficiently, speakers have to take into account which information they share with their addressee (common ground) and which information they do not share (privileged ground). Two views have emerged about how and when common ground influences language production. In one view, speakers take common ground into account early on during utterance planning (e.g., Brennan & Hanna, 2009). Alternatively, it has been proposed that speakers’ initial utterance plans are egocentric, but that they monitor their plans and revise them if needed (Horton & Keysar, 1996). In an fMRI study, we investigated which neural mechanisms support speakers’ ability to take into account common ground, and at what stage during speech planning these mechanisms come into play. We tested 22 pairs of native Dutch speakers (20 pairs retained in the analysis), who were assigned to the roles of speaker or listener for the course of the experiment. The speaker performed the experiment in the MRI scanner, while the listener sat behind a computer in the MRI control room. The speaker performed a communicative and a noncommunicative task in the scanner. The communicative task was a referential communication game in which the speaker described objects in an array to the listener. The listener could hear the speaker’s descriptions over headphones and tried to select the intended object on her screen using a mouse. We manipulated common ground within the communicative task. In the privileged ground condition, the speaker saw additional competitor objects that were occluded from the listener’s point of view. In order to communicate efficiently, the speaker had to ignore the occluded competitor objects. In the control conditions, all relevant objects were in common ground. The non-communicative task was identical to the communicative task, except that the speaker was instructed to describe the objects without the listener listening. When comparing the BOLD response during speech planning in the communicative and the noncommunicative tasks, we found activations in the right medial prefrontal cortex and bilateral insula, brain areas involved in mentalizing and empathy. These results confirm previous neuroimaging research that found that speaking in a communicative context as compared to a non-communicative context activates brain areas that are involved in mentalizing (Sassa et al., 2007; Willems et al., 2010). We also contrasted brain activity in the privileged ground and control conditions within the communicative task to tap into the neural mechanisms that allow speakers to take common ground into account. We again found activity in brain regions involved in mentalizing and visual perspective-taking (the bilateral temporo-parietal junction and medial prefrontal cortex). In addition, we found a cluster in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area that has previously been proposed to support the inhibition of task-irrelevant perspectives (Ramsey et al., 2013). Interestingly, these clusters are located outside the traditional language network. Our results suggest that speakers engage in mentalizing and visual perspective-taking during speech planning in order to compute common ground rather than monitoring and adjusting their initial egocentric utterance plans