Left Anterior Negativity reflects distinct neural substrate for linguistic rule application

A critical issue for understanding language processing in the brain is whether linguistic rule application is subserved by a distinct neural substrate. Previous evidence based on electroencephalographic measurements is indirect because studies focus on neural changes after rule violation, which may reflect processes caused by the violation such as error handling. Here we show that correct rule-governed formations are associated with left frontal negative-going activity, providing direct evidence for rule application in the brain

Large constituent families help children parse compounds

The family size of the constituents of compound words, or the number of compounds sharing the constituents, has been shown to affect adults’ access to compound words in the mental lexicon. The present study was designed to see if family size would affect children’s segmentation of compounds. Twenty-five English-speaking children between 3;7 and 5;9 were asked to explain the meaning of existing compounds with constituents of varying family size to an alien puppet. The results showed that children were more likely to mention the modifier of compounds if they came from large constituent families than if they came from small constituent families. Other variables were also shown to have some, but smaller effects on children’s parsing, including the frequency of the constituent words and the compounds, whether the compounds were already known, and age. These results suggest that children’s segmentation of compounds might be facilitated by analogy with other compounds already in their vocabularies

Bilingualism enhances reported perspective taking in men, but not in women

Bilingual speakers have often been found to be superior in taking the perspective of another person. Also, females are commonly found to have enhanced perspective taking (PT) abilities compared with males, with male PT being generally more easily affected by external factors. The present study investigated whether bilingualism improves PT in males more strongly than in females. In total, 108 bilingual and 108 matched monolingual adults, with equal numbers of males and females, filled in the PT subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity index. While monolinguals showed the typical result of females scoring higher on PT than males, scores of male and female bilinguals did not differ, with both bilingual groups scoring as high as female monolinguals. Thus, bilingualism enhanced self-reported PT only in males, suggesting that male PT can be enhanced through socialization

A Bilingual Advantage? An Appeal for a Change in Perspective and Recommendations for Future Research

The debate on possible cognitive advantages bilinguals have over monolinguals continues to occupy the research community. There is an ever-growing research body focusing on adjudicating whether there is, in fact, an effect of using two or more languages regularly on cognition. In this paper, we briefly review some of the more pertinent literature that has attempted to identify attenuating, modulating, and confounding factors in research comparing monolingual and bilingual populations, and we highlight issues that should be taken into account in future research to move forward as a research community. At the same time, we argue for a change in perspective concerning what is deemed an advantage and what is not and argue for more ecologically valid research that investigates real-life advantages

From gr8 to great: Lexical Access to SMS Shortcuts

Many contemporary texts include shortcuts, such as cu or phones4u. The aim of this study was to investigate how the meanings of shortcuts are retrieved. A primed lexical decision paradigm was used with shortcuts and the corresponding words as primes. The target word was associatively related to the meaning of the whole prime (cu/see you – goodbye), to a component of the prime (cu/see you – look), or unrelated to the prime. In Experiment 1, primes were presented for 57 ms. For both word and shortcut primes, responses were faster to targets preceded by whole-related than by unrelated primes. No priming from component-related primes was found. In Experiment 2, the prime duration was 1000 ms. The priming effect seen in Experiment 1 was replicated. Additionally, there was priming from component-related word primes, but not from component-related shortcut primes. These results indicate that the meanings of shortcuts can be retrieved without translating them first into corresponding words

Information packaging in speech shapes information packaging in gesture : the role of speech planning units in the coordination of speech-gesture production

Linguistic encoding influences the gestural manner and path depiction of motion events. Gestures depict manner and path of motion events differently across languages, either conflating or separating manner and path, depending on whether manner and path are linguistically encoded within one clause (e.g., “rolling down”) or multiple clauses (e.g., “descends as it rolls”) respectively. However, it is unclear whether such gestural differences are affected by how speech packages information into planning units or by the way information is lexicalised (as verb plus particle or as two verbs). In two experiments, we manipulated the linguistic encoding of motion events in either one or two planning units while lexicalisation patterns were kept constant (i.e., verb plus particle). It was found that separating manner (verb) and path (particle) into different planning units also increased gestural manner and path separation. Thus, lexicalisation patterns do not drive gestural depiction of motion events. Rather gestures are shaped online by how speakers package information into planning units in speech production

Electrophysiological evidence for a neural substrate of morphological rule application in correct wordforms

AbstractA critical issue for understanding language processing in the brain is whether linguistic rule application is subserved by a distinct neural substrate. One of the evidence supporting this hypothesis stems from studies employing electroencephalographic measurements during the processing of rule misapplication. This evidence is inconclusive because it might reflect processes caused by the violation such as error handling rather than application of rules per se. Here we provide first evidence that correct regular formations, i.e., German past participles, are associated with left anterior negative-going activity (LAN) providing encephalographic evidence for rule application in the brain during the processing of correct words. Moreover, a LAN response is present regardless of the participles’ frequency, suggesting that independently from the mode of lexical access (i.e., decomposition or full-form activation), the cerebral structures associated with rule-based mechanisms are activated

The benefit of simultaneously encountered exemplars and of exemplar variability to verb learning

AbstractYoung children are conservative when extending novel verbs to novel exemplars. We investigated whether multiple, simultaneously presented exemplars would aid young children's verb learning, as well as the importance of exemplar variability. Three-year-olds were taught novel verbs, while viewing either one action-scene featuring a novel action performed on a novel object, or two action-scenes side-by-side in which the action performed was the same but the object varied, or two action-scenes side-by-side in which no aspect of the scenes varied. They were asked to extend the novel verbs to one of two scenes: one that maintained the action and one that maintained the object. Findings indicated that children were only able to extend verbs correctly after viewing two action-scenes in which the content varied. These findings suggest that simultaneously presented exemplars of a verb can support verb learning in younger children, but only when the content of the exemplars varies.</jats:p