1
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Ullman MT, Bulut T, Walenski M. Hijacking limitations of working memory load to test for composition in language. Cognition 2024; 251:105875. [PMID: 39018637 PMCID: PMC11343680 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105875] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2023] [Revised: 07/02/2024] [Accepted: 07/03/2024] [Indexed: 07/19/2024]
Abstract
Although language depends on storage and composition, just what is stored or (de)composed remains unclear. We leveraged working memory load limitations to test for composition, hypothesizing that decomposed forms should particularly tax working memory. We focused on a well-studied paradigm, English inflectional morphology. We predicted that (compositional) regulars should be harder to maintain in working memory than (non-compositional) irregulars, using a 3-back production task. Frequency, phonology, orthography, and other potentially confounding factors were controlled for. Compared to irregulars, regulars and their accompanying -s/-ing-affixed filler items yielded more errors. Underscoring the decomposition of only regulars, regulars yielded more bare-stem (e.g., walk) and stem affixation errors (walks/walking) than irregulars, whereas irregulars yielded more past-tense-form affixation errors (broughts/tolded). In line with previous evidence that regulars can be stored under certain conditions, the regular-irregular difference held specifically for phonologically consistent (not inconsistent) regulars, in particular for both low and high frequency consistent regulars in males, but only for low frequency consistent regulars in females. Sensitivity analyses suggested the findings were robust. The study further elucidates the computation of inflected forms, and introduces a simple diagnostic for linguistic composition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael T Ullman
- Brain and Language Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA.
| | - Talat Bulut
- Neurobiology of Language Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands; Department of Speech and Language Therapy, Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Turkey.
| | - Matthew Walenski
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA.
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2
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Larionova E, Garakh Z. Spelling principles matter: An ERP study investigating the processing of different types of pseudohomophones. Brain Res 2024; 1839:149012. [PMID: 38772521 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2024.149012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2024] [Revised: 05/15/2024] [Accepted: 05/16/2024] [Indexed: 05/23/2024]
Abstract
Spelling in any writing system is governed by fundamental principles. We examined the processing of two types of pseudohomophones constructed from words whose spellings are based on different principles - on the traditional principle of writing, requiring memorization of their spelling, and on the morphological principle, allowing the determination of their spelling from another word with the same morpheme (root) to examine the dependence of the occurrence of orthography-phonology conflict on spelling principles. Event-related potentials were recorded from 22 volunteers during silent reading. Pseudohomophones based on the morphological principle increased the N400 amplitude, emphasizing semantic and morphological processing importance. The P600 component showed significant effects for differentiating words and pseudohomophones based on the traditional principle, predominantly indicating the involvement of memory and reanalysis processes. Source reconstruction demonstrates that both pseudohomophones activate the left inferior frontal gyrus. However, pseudohomophones based on the traditional principle additionally activate the right and left postcentral gyrus, indicating the involvement of additional areas in the differentiation process. The earlier differences for stimuli based on the morphological principle indicate access to smaller units (morphemes), whereas stimuli based on the traditional principle require whole word processing. Our findings underscore the significant role of spelling principles in orthographic processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ekaterina Larionova
- Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation.
| | - Zhanna Garakh
- Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation
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3
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Alekseeva M, Myachykov A, Bermudez-Margaretto B, Shtyrov Y. Morphosyntactic prediction in automatic neural processing of spoken language: EEG evidence. Brain Res 2024; 1836:148949. [PMID: 38641266 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2024.148949] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/06/2023] [Revised: 03/29/2024] [Accepted: 04/16/2024] [Indexed: 04/21/2024]
Abstract
Automatic parsing of syntactic information by the human brain is a well-established phenomenon, but its mechanisms remain poorly understood. Its best-known neurophysiological reflection is the so-called early left-anterior negativity (ELAN) component of event-related potentials (ERPs), with two alternative hypotheses for its origin: (1) error detection, or (2) morphosyntactic prediction/priming. To test these alternatives, we conducted two experiments using a non-attend passive design with visual distraction and recorded ERPs to spoken pronoun-verb phrases with/without agreement violations and to the same critical verbs presented in isolation without preceding pronouns. The results revealed an ELAN at ∼130-220 ms for pronoun-verb gender agreement violations, confirming a high degree of automaticity in early morphosyntactic parsing. Critically, the strongest ELAN was elicited by verbs outside phrasal context, which suggests that the typical ELAN pattern is underpinned by a reduction of ERP amplitudes for felicitous combinations, reflecting syntactic priming/predictability between related words/morphemes (potentially mediated by associative links formed during previous linguistic experience) rather than specialised error-detection processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Alekseeva
- Centre for Cognition and Decision Making, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russian Federation.
| | | | - Beatriz Bermudez-Margaretto
- Instituto de Integración en la Comunidad (INICO), Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
| | - Yury Shtyrov
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
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4
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Kim J, Kim S, Nam K. Neural Dynamics of Processing Inflectional Morphology: An fMRI Study on Korean Inflected Verbs. Brain Sci 2024; 14:752. [PMID: 39199447 PMCID: PMC11352235 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci14080752] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2024] [Revised: 07/19/2024] [Accepted: 07/23/2024] [Indexed: 09/01/2024] Open
Abstract
The present study aimed to elucidate the neural mechanisms underpinning the visual recognition of morphologically complex verbs in Korean, a morphologically rich, agglutinative language with inherent polymorphemic characteristics. In an fMRI experiment with a lexical decision paradigm, we investigated whether verb inflection types (base, regular, and irregular) are processed through separate mechanisms or a single system. Furthermore, we explored the semantic influence in processing inflectional morphology by manipulating the semantic ambiguity (homonymous vs. unambiguous) of inflected verbs. The results showed equivalent activation levels in the left inferior frontal gyrus for both regular and irregular verbs, challenging the dichotomy between the two. Graded effects of verb regularity were observed in the occipitotemporal regions, with regular inflections eliciting increased activation in the fusiform and lingual gyri. In the middle occipital gyrus, homonyms showed decreased activation relative to that of unambiguous words, specifically for base and irregular forms. Furthermore, the angular gyrus exhibited significant modulation with all verb types, indicating a semantic influence during morphological processing. These findings support single-system theories and the connectionist framework, challenging the assumptions of purely orthographic morphological decomposition and dual-mechanism accounts. Furthermore, they provide evidence for a semantic influence during morphological processing, with differential reliance on semantic activation for regular and irregular inflections.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joonwoo Kim
- Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea;
| | - Sangyub Kim
- Department of Psychology, Chonnam National University, Gwangju 61186, Republic of Korea;
| | - Kichun Nam
- Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea;
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5
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De Rosa M, Vignali L, D’Urso A, Ktori M, Bottini R, Crepaldi D. Selective Neural Entrainment Reveals Hierarchical Tuning to Linguistic Regularities in Reading. NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE (CAMBRIDGE, MASS.) 2024; 5:528-552. [PMID: 38911459 PMCID: PMC11192515 DOI: 10.1162/nol_a_00145] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2023] [Accepted: 03/20/2024] [Indexed: 06/25/2024]
Abstract
Reading is both a visual and a linguistic task, and as such it relies on both general-purpose, visual mechanisms and more abstract, meaning-oriented processes. Disentangling the roles of these resources is of paramount importance in reading research. The present study capitalizes on the coupling of fast periodic visual stimulation and MEG recordings to address this issue and investigate the role of different kinds of visual and linguistic units in the visual word identification system. We compared strings of pseudo-characters; strings of consonants (e.g., sfcl); readable, but unattested strings (e.g., amsi); frequent, but non-meaningful chunks (e.g., idge); suffixes (e.g., ment); and words (e.g., vibe); and looked for discrimination responses with a particular focus on the ventral, occipito-temporal regions. The results revealed sensitivity to alphabetic, readable, familiar, and lexical stimuli. Interestingly, there was no discrimination between suffixes and equally frequent, but meaningless endings, thus highlighting a lack of sensitivity to semantics. Taken together, the data suggest that the visual word identification system, at least in its early processing stages, is particularly tuned to form-based regularities, most likely reflecting its reliance on general-purpose, statistical learning mechanisms that are a core feature of the visual system as implemented in the ventral stream.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mara De Rosa
- Cognitive Neuroscience Department, International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy
| | - Lorenzo Vignali
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Mattarello, Trento, Italy
| | - Anna D’Urso
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Mattarello, Trento, Italy
| | - Maria Ktori
- Cognitive Neuroscience Department, International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy
| | - Roberto Bottini
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Mattarello, Trento, Italy
| | - Davide Crepaldi
- Cognitive Neuroscience Department, International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy
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Lukic S, Fan Z, García AM, Welch AE, Ratnasiri BM, Wilson SM, Henry ML, Vonk J, Deleon J, Miller BL, Miller Z, Mandelli ML, Gorno-Tempini ML. Discriminating nonfluent/agrammatic and logopenic PPA variants with automatically extracted morphosyntactic measures from connected speech. Cortex 2024; 173:34-48. [PMID: 38359511 PMCID: PMC11246552 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.12.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2023] [Revised: 10/15/2023] [Accepted: 12/12/2023] [Indexed: 02/17/2024]
Abstract
Morphosyntactic assessments are important for characterizing individuals with nonfluent/agrammatic variant primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA). Yet, standard tests are subject to examiner bias and often fail to differentiate between nfvPPA and logopenic variant PPA (lvPPA). Moreover, relevant neural signatures remain underexplored. Here, we leverage natural language processing tools to automatically capture morphosyntactic disturbances and their neuroanatomical correlates in 35 individuals with nfvPPA relative to 10 healthy controls (HC) and 26 individuals with lvPPA. Participants described a picture, and ensuing transcripts were analyzed via part-of-speech tagging to extract sentence-related features (e.g., subordinating and coordinating conjunctions), verbal-related features (e.g., tense markers), and nominal-related features (e.g., subjective and possessive pronouns). Gradient boosting machines were used to classify between groups using all features. We identified the most discriminant morphosyntactic marker via a feature importance algorithm and examined its neural correlates via voxel-based morphometry. Individuals with nfvPPA produced fewer morphosyntactic elements than the other two groups. Such features robustly discriminated them from both individuals with lvPPA and HCs with an AUC of .95 and .82, respectively. The most discriminatory feature corresponded to subordinating conjunctions was correlated with cortical atrophy within the left posterior inferior frontal gyrus across groups (pFWE < .05). Automated morphosyntactic analysis can efficiently differentiate nfvPPA from lvPPA. Also, the most sensitive morphosyntactic markers correlate with a core atrophy region of nfvPPA. Our approach, thus, can contribute to a key challenge in PPA diagnosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sladjana Lukic
- University of California, San Francisco Memory and Aging Center, CA, USA; Ruth S. Ammon College of Education and Health Sciences, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, USA.
| | - Zekai Fan
- Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Adolfo M García
- Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA; Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Departamento de Lingüística y Literatura, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Ariane E Welch
- Ruth S. Ammon College of Education and Health Sciences, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, USA
| | | | - Stephen M Wilson
- School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
| | - Maya L Henry
- University of Texas at Austin Moody College of Communication, Austin, TX, USA
| | - Jet Vonk
- University of California, San Francisco Memory and Aging Center, CA, USA
| | - Jessica Deleon
- University of California, San Francisco Memory and Aging Center, CA, USA
| | - Bruce L Miller
- University of California, San Francisco Memory and Aging Center, CA, USA
| | - Zachary Miller
- University of California, San Francisco Memory and Aging Center, CA, USA
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7
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Auch L, Pérez Cruz K, Gagné CL, Spalding TL. LaDEP: A large database of English pseudo-compounds. Behav Res Methods 2024; 56:2606-2622. [PMID: 37464152 PMCID: PMC10991000 DOI: 10.3758/s13428-023-02170-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/14/2023] [Indexed: 07/20/2023]
Abstract
The Large Database of English Pseudo-compounds (LaDEP) contains nearly 7500 English words which mimic, but do not truly possess, a compound morphemic structure. These pseudo-compounds can be parsed into two free morpheme constituents (e.g., car-pet), but neither constituent functions as a morpheme within the overall word structure. The items were manually coded as pseudo-compounds, further coded for features related to their morphological structure (e.g., presence of multiple affixes, as in ruler-ship), and summarized using common psycholinguistic variables (e.g., length, frequency). This paper also presents an example analysis comparing the lexical decision response times between compound words, pseudo-compound words, and monomorphemic words. Pseudo-compounds and monomorphemic words did not differ in response time, and both groups had slower response times than compound words. This analysis replicates the facilitatory effect of compound constituents during lexical processing, and demonstrates the need to emphasize the pseudo-constituent structure of pseudo-compounds to parse their effects. Further applications of LaDEP include both psycholinguistic studies investigating the nature of human word processing or production and educational or clinical settings evaluating the impact of linguistic features on language learning and impairments. Overall, the items within LaDEP provide a varied and representative sample of the population of English pseudo-compounds which may be used to facilitate further research related to morphological decomposition, lexical access, meaning construction, orthographical influences, and much more.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leah Auch
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Alberta, Corbett Hall, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G4, Canada
| | - Karen Pérez Cruz
- Department of Counselling Psychology, Yorkville University, Fredericton, NB, E3C 2R9, Canada
| | - Christina L Gagné
- Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, P-217 Biological Sciences Building, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E9, Canada.
| | - Thomas L Spalding
- Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, P-217 Biological Sciences Building, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E9, Canada
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8
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Zhang W, Yan Z, Dong Q, Dong J, Lu Y, Duan X, Yan H. Semantic transparency modulates the semantic perception of morphemes: Evidence from RSA of BOLD signals. Neurosci Lett 2024; 823:137649. [PMID: 38262508 DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2024.137649] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2023] [Revised: 01/17/2024] [Accepted: 01/19/2024] [Indexed: 01/25/2024]
Abstract
There is no converging evidence on how a word's semantic transparency affects morphemes' potential semantic activation. The inconsistent results may be due to the limitation of traditional univariate analyses, in which the semantic transparency was treated as discrete categories. In the current study, Chinese two-character words were used as stimuli and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques were combined with a priming paradigm. Unlike most previous studies, the multivariate representation similarity analysis (RSA) was used to treat semantic transparency as a continuous variable. The RSA results showed that widespread regions in the frontal-parietal-temporal network represent the semantic perception of characters in all words and transparent words, but no brain areas were identified in opaque words. Unlike RSA results, univariate analyses showed no significant difference between the opaque and transparent words. These results suggest that RSA is more suitable to examine the neural mechanism related to continuous variables such as semantic transparency.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wenjia Zhang
- Key Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Neuroscience of Language, Xi'an International Studies University, Xi'an, China
| | - Zhiqiang Yan
- Department of Neurosurgery, Xijing Hospital, The fourth Military Medical University, 710032 Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
| | - Qiufeng Dong
- Department of Neurosurgery, Xijing Hospital, The fourth Military Medical University, 710032 Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
| | - Jie Dong
- Key Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Neuroscience of Language, Xi'an International Studies University, Xi'an, China
| | - Yan Lu
- Key Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Neuroscience of Language, Xi'an International Studies University, Xi'an, China
| | - Xu Duan
- Key Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Neuroscience of Language, Xi'an International Studies University, Xi'an, China
| | - Hao Yan
- Key Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Neuroscience of Language, Xi'an International Studies University, Xi'an, China.
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9
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Mai A, Riès S, Ben-Haim S, Shih JJ, Gentner TQ. Acoustic and language-specific sources for phonemic abstraction from speech. Nat Commun 2024; 15:677. [PMID: 38263364 PMCID: PMC10805762 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-44844-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2023] [Accepted: 01/03/2024] [Indexed: 01/25/2024] Open
Abstract
Spoken language comprehension requires abstraction of linguistic information from speech, but the interaction between auditory and linguistic processing of speech remains poorly understood. Here, we investigate the nature of this abstraction using neural responses recorded intracranially while participants listened to conversational English speech. Capitalizing on multiple, language-specific patterns where phonological and acoustic information diverge, we demonstrate the causal efficacy of the phoneme as a unit of analysis and dissociate the unique contributions of phonemic and spectrographic information to neural responses. Quantitive higher-order response models also reveal that unique contributions of phonological information are carried in the covariance structure of the stimulus-response relationship. This suggests that linguistic abstraction is shaped by neurobiological mechanisms that involve integration across multiple spectro-temporal features and prior phonological information. These results link speech acoustics to phonology and morphosyntax, substantiating predictions about abstractness in linguistic theory and providing evidence for the acoustic features that support that abstraction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Mai
- University of California, San Diego, Linguistics, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.
| | - Stephanie Riès
- San Diego State University, School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA, 92182, USA
- San Diego State University, Center for Clinical and Cognitive Sciences, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA, 92182, USA
| | - Sharona Ben-Haim
- University of California, San Diego, Neurological Surgery, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Jerry J Shih
- University of California, San Diego, Neurosciences, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Timothy Q Gentner
- University of California, San Diego, Psychology, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
- University of California, San Diego, Neurobiology, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
- University of California, San Diego, Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
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Ferreira J, Roelofs A, Freches GB, Piai V. An fMRI study of inflectional encoding in spoken word production: Role of domain-general inhibition. Neuropsychologia 2023; 188:108653. [PMID: 37499792 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108653] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2022] [Revised: 05/02/2023] [Accepted: 07/24/2023] [Indexed: 07/29/2023]
Abstract
A major issue concerning inflectional encoding in spoken word production is whether or not regular forms (e.g., past tense walked) are encoded by rule application and irregular forms (e.g., swam) by retrieval from associative memory and inhibition of the regular rule. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the involvement of domain-general inhibition, thought to be underpinned by right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), right pre-supplementary motor area (SMA), and right basal ganglia. Participants were presented with infinitive verbs that take either regular or irregular past tense. They switched between producing the past tense of these regular and irregular verbs in one block, and between inflecting or reading these infinitive verbs aloud in another block. As concerns corticobasal areas, compared to reading, inflecting activated left IFG and left preSMA/SMA. Regulars yielded higher activation than irregulars in these frontal areas, both on switch and repeat trials, which did not differ in activation. Switching between inflecting and reading activated left preSMA/SMA. These results indicate that inflectional encoding, and switching between inflecting and reading, engage frontal areas in the left hemisphere, including left preSMA/SMA for both and left IFG for inflecting, without recruiting the domain-general inhibition circuitry in the right hemisphere. We advance an account of inflectional encoding in spoken word production that assumes a distinction between regulars and irregulars, but without engaging domain-general inhibition.
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Affiliation(s)
- João Ferreira
- Radboud University, Donders Centre for Cognition, Maria Montessori Building, Thomas van Aquinostraat 4, 6525 GD Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
| | - Ardi Roelofs
- Radboud University, Donders Centre for Cognition, Maria Montessori Building, Thomas van Aquinostraat 4, 6525 GD Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
| | - Guilherme Blazquez Freches
- Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Center, Geert Grooteplein Zuid 10, 6525 GA, Nijmegen, the Netherlands; Radboud University, Donders Centre for Neuroscience, Heyendaalseweg, 135 6525, AJ Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
| | - Vitória Piai
- Radboud University, Donders Centre for Cognition, Maria Montessori Building, Thomas van Aquinostraat 4, 6525 GD Nijmegen, the Netherlands; Radboudumc, Donders Centre for Medical Neuroscience, Dept. of Medical Psychology, Geert Grooteplein Zuid 10, 6525 GA Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
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11
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Gao F, Hua L, Armada-da-Silva P, Zhang J, Li D, Chen Z, Wang C, Du M, Yuan Z. Shared and distinct neural correlates of first and second language morphological processing in bilingual brain. NPJ SCIENCE OF LEARNING 2023; 8:33. [PMID: 37666860 PMCID: PMC10477180 DOI: 10.1038/s41539-023-00184-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/11/2022] [Accepted: 08/21/2023] [Indexed: 09/06/2023]
Abstract
While morphology constitutes a crucial component of the human language system, the neural bases of morphological processing in the human brain remains to be elucidated. The current study aims at exploring the extent to which the second language (L2) morphological processing would resemble or differ from that of their first language (L1) in adult Chinese-English bilinguals. Bilingual participants were asked to complete a morphological priming lexical decision task drawing on derivational morphology, which is present for both Chinese and English, when their electrophysiological and optical responses were recorded concurrently. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) revealed a neural dissociation between morphological and semantic priming effects in the left fronto-temporal network, while L1 Chinese engaged enhanced activation in the left prefrontal cortex for morphological parsing relative to L2 English. In the early stage of lexical processing, cross-language morphological processing manifested a difference in degree, not in kind, as revealed by the early left anterior negativity (ELAN) effect. In addition, L1 and L2 shared both early and late structural parsing processes (P250 and 300 ~ 500 ms negativity, respectively). Therefore, the current results support a unified competition model for bilingual development, where bilinguals would primarily employ L1 neural resources for L2 morphological representation and processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fei Gao
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China
- Institute of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Lin Hua
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China
| | - Paulo Armada-da-Silva
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China
| | - Juan Zhang
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China
- Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China
| | - Defeng Li
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China
- Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China
| | - Zhiyi Chen
- The Affiliated Changsha Central Hospital, Hengyang Medical School, University of South China, Changsha, China
- Institute of Medical Imaging, Hengyang Medical School, University of South China, Hengyang, China
- The Seven Affiliated Hospital, Hengyang Medical School, University of South China, Changsha, China
| | - Chengwen Wang
- School of International Cultural Exchange, University of Finance and Economics, Central, Beijing, China
| | - Meng Du
- The Affiliated Changsha Central Hospital, Hengyang Medical School, University of South China, Changsha, China
- Institute of Medical Imaging, Hengyang Medical School, University of South China, Hengyang, China
| | - Zhen Yuan
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China.
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China.
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12
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Butler LK. Morphological and conceptual influences on the real-time comprehension of optional plural marked sentences in Yucatec Maya. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1135474. [PMID: 37680244 PMCID: PMC10480837 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1135474] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2022] [Accepted: 08/01/2023] [Indexed: 09/09/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction Psycholinguistic research often focuses on Indo-European and other commonly studied major languages, while typologically diverse languages remain understudied. In this paper, we examine the morphological and conceptual influences on the real-time comprehension of optional plural-marked sentences in Yucatec Maya, an indigenous language of Mexico with a less commonly studied optional plural marking system. Methods Fifty-one speakers of Yucatec Maya participated in a picture-sentence matching experiment carried out in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Pictures of one, two, or seven humans or animals depicting an intransitive action (conceptual number) were paired with auditorily presented sentences that had no plural marking, one plural, or two plurals (morphological number). Participants indicated by key press whether the picture and the sentence were an acceptable match, and decision time was recorded. Results In the analysis of decision (yes versus no) and accuracy, morphological and conceptual factors interacted. In the analysis of decision time, however, morphological plural marking, but not conceptual number, led to faster decisions. Discussion In light of previous work on the role of conceptual factors in the computation of number agreement, the interaction between conceptual and morphological factors suggests that a language with optional plural marking (or low "morphological richness") is associated with high conceptual influence on sentence comprehension. Importantly, the results of this study expand the empirical base of language types that have been investigated using psycholinguistic methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lindsay K. Butler
- Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States
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13
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Czypionka A, Kharaman M, Eulitz C. Wolf-hound vs. sled-dog: neurolinguistic evidence for semantic decomposition in the recognition of German noun-noun compounds. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1173352. [PMID: 37663335 PMCID: PMC10470010 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1173352] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2023] [Accepted: 07/31/2023] [Indexed: 09/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Animacy is an intrinsic semantic property of words referring to living things. A long line of evidence shows that words with animate referents require lower processing costs during word recognition than words with inanimate referents, leading among others to a decreased N400 amplitude in reaction to animate relative to inanimate objects. In the current study, we use this animacy effect to provide evidence for access to the semantic properties of constituents in German noun-noun compounds. While morphological decomposition of noun-noun compounds is well-researched and illustrated by the robust influence of lexical constituent properties like constituent length and frequency, findings for semantic decomposition are less clear in the current literature. By manipulating the animacy of compound modifiers and heads, we are able to manipulate the relative ease of lexical access strictly due to intrinsic semantic properties of the constituents. Our results show additive effects of constituent animacy, with a higher number of animate constituents leading to gradually attenuated N400 amplitudes. We discuss the implications of our findings for current models of complex word recognition, as well as stimulus construction practices in psycho-and neurolinguistic research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Czypionka
- Department of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Mariya Kharaman
- Department of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Carsten Eulitz
- Department of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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14
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Huang B, Yang X, Dong S, Gu F. Visual event-related potentials reveal the early whole-word lexical processing of Chinese two-character words. Neuropsychologia 2023; 185:108571. [PMID: 37119984 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108571] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/04/2022] [Revised: 04/25/2023] [Accepted: 04/26/2023] [Indexed: 05/01/2023]
Abstract
Morphologically complex words are common across different languages, especially in Chinese, because more than 90% of common modern Chinese words are complex words. Many behavioral studies have suggested the whole-word processing of Chinese complex words, but the neural correlates of whole-word processing remain unclear. Previous electrophysiological studies revealed automatic and early (∼250 ms) access to the orthographic forms of monomorphic words in the ventral occipitotemporal area. In this study, we investigated whether there is also automatic and early orthographic recognition of Chinese complex words (as whole units) by recording event-related potentials (ERPs). A total of 150 two-character words and 150 two-character pseudowords composed of the same 300 characters (morphemes) were pseudorandomly presented to proficient Chinese readers. Participants were required to determine the color of each stimulus in the color decision task and to determine whether each stimulus was a word in the lexical decision task. The two constituent characters of each stimulus were horizontally arranged in Experiment 1 and vertically arranged in Experiment 2. The results revealed a significant early ERP difference between words and pseudowords approximately 250-300 ms after stimulus onset in the parieto-occipital scalp region. The early ERP difference was more prominent in the color decision task than in the lexical decision task, more prominent in Experiment 1 than in Experiment 2, and more prominent in the left parieto-occipital scalp region than in the right. Source analysis results showed that the early ERP difference originated from the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex. These results reflected early and automatic access to whole-word orthographic representations of Chinese complex words in the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bo Huang
- Neurocognitive Laboratory for Linguistics and Semiotics, College of Literature and Journalism, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610207, China
| | - Xueying Yang
- Neurocognitive Laboratory for Linguistics and Semiotics, College of Literature and Journalism, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610207, China
| | - Shiwei Dong
- Neurocognitive Laboratory for Linguistics and Semiotics, College of Literature and Journalism, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610207, China
| | - Feng Gu
- Neurocognitive Laboratory for Linguistics and Semiotics, College of Literature and Journalism, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610207, China; Digital Convergence Laboratory of Chinese Cultural Inheritance and Global Communication, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610207, China.
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15
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Deep Intelligence: What AI Should Learn from Nature’s Imagination. Cognit Comput 2023. [DOI: 10.1007/s12559-023-10124-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/08/2023]
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16
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Gao F, Hua L, He Y, Xu J, Li D, Zhang J, Yuan Z. Word Structure Tunes Electrophysiological and Hemodynamic Responses in the Frontal Cortex. Bioengineering (Basel) 2023; 10:bioengineering10030288. [PMID: 36978679 PMCID: PMC10044899 DOI: 10.3390/bioengineering10030288] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/08/2023] [Revised: 01/31/2023] [Accepted: 02/10/2023] [Indexed: 03/30/2023] Open
Abstract
To date, it is still unclear how word structure might impact lexical processing in the brain for languages with an impoverished system of grammatical morphology such as Chinese. In this study, concurrent electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) recordings were performed to inspect the temporal and spatial brain activities that are related to Chinese word structure (compound vs. derivation vs. non-morphological) effects. A masked priming paradigm was utilized on three lexical conditions (compound constitute priming, derivation constitute priming, and non-morphological priming) to tap Chinese native speakers' structural sensitivity to differing word structures. The compound vs. derivation structure effect was revealed by the behavioral data as well as the temporal and spatial brain activation patterns. In the masked priming task, Chinese derivations exhibited significantly enhanced brain activation in the frontal cortex and involved broader brain networks as compared with lexicalized compounds. The results were interpreted by the differing connection patterns between constitute morphemes within a given word structure from a spreading activation perspective. More importantly, we demonstrated that the Chinese word structure effect showed a distinct brain activation pattern from that of the dual-route mechanism in alphabetic languages. Therefore, this work paved a new avenue for comprehensively understanding the underlying cognitive neural mechanisms associated with Chinese derivations and coordinate compounds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fei Gao
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
- Institute of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
| | - Lin Hua
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
| | - Yuwen He
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
| | - Jie Xu
- Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
| | - Defeng Li
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
- Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
| | - Juan Zhang
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
- Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
| | - Zhen Yuan
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR 999078, China
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Sun X, Marks RA, Zhang K, Yu CL, Eggleston RL, Nickerson N, Chou TL, Hu XS, Tardif T, Satterfield T, Kovelman I. Brain bases of English morphological processing: A comparison between Chinese-English, Spanish-English bilingual, and English monolingual children. Dev Sci 2023; 26:e13251. [PMID: 35188687 PMCID: PMC9615011 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13251] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/10/2021] [Revised: 02/08/2022] [Accepted: 02/09/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
How do early bilingual experiences influence children's neural architecture for word processing? Dual language acquisition can yield common influences that may be shared across different bilingual groups, as well as language-specific influences stemming from a given language pairing. To investigate these effects, we examined bilingual English speakers of Chinese or Spanish, and English monolinguals, all raised in the US (N = 152, ages 5-10). Children completed an English morphological word processing task during fNIRS neuroimaging. The findings revealed both language-specific and shared bilingual effects. The language-specific effects were that Chinese and Spanish bilinguals showed principled differences in their neural organization for English lexical morphology. The common bilingual effects shared by the two groups were that in both bilingual groups, increased home language proficiency was associated with stronger left superior temporal gyrus (STG) activation when processing the English word structures that are most dissimilar from the home language. The findings inform theories of language and brain development during the key periods of neural reorganization for learning to read by illuminating experience-based plasticity in linguistically diverse learners.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xin Sun
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Rebecca A. Marks
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Kehui Zhang
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Chi-Lin Yu
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Rachel L. Eggleston
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Nia Nickerson
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Tai-Li Chou
- Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Xiao-Su Hu
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Twila Tardif
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Teresa Satterfield
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Ioulia Kovelman
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
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18
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Terry JM, Thomas ER, Jackson SC, Hirotani M. African American English speaking 2nd graders, verbal-s, and educational achievement: Event related potential and math study findings. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0273926. [PMID: 36264958 PMCID: PMC9584506 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273926] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2021] [Accepted: 08/17/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
A number of influential linguistic analyses hold that African American English (AAE) has no verbal-s, the-s that, for example, turns drink into drinks in more mainstream English varieties.On such accounts, sentences like Mary drinks coffee are ungrammatical in AAE. Previous behavioral studies suggest that in addition to being ungrammatical, AAE speaking children find these sentences cognitively demanding, and that their presence in mathematical reasoning tests can depress scores. Until now, however, no online sentence processing study nor investigation of neurophysiological markers has been done to support these findings. Aimed at addressing this gap in the literature, the auditory ERP experiment described herein revealed two different processes associated with AAE speaking 2nd graders listening to this type of sentence: a morphosyntactic structure building problem, reflected in a bilateral early anterior-central negativity; and an increase in working memory load, indicated by a bilateral late long-lasting anterior-central negativity. Study participants also took an orally administered test of math word problems. Consistent with previous findings, results showed they answered fewer questions correctly when those questions contained verbal-s than when they did not.
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Affiliation(s)
- J. Michael Terry
- Department of Linguistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America
- * E-mail: (JMT); , (MH)
| | - Erik R. Thomas
- Department of English, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Sandra C. Jackson
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, North Carolina Central University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Masako Hirotani
- Department of Linguistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America
- School of Linguistics and Language Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
- * E-mail: (JMT); , (MH)
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19
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Meaning above (and in) the head: Combinatorial visual morphology from comics and emoji. Mem Cognit 2022; 50:1381-1398. [PMID: 35235175 PMCID: PMC9508049 DOI: 10.3758/s13421-022-01294-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Compositionality is a primary feature of language, but graphics can also create combinatorial meaning, like with items above faces (e.g., lightbulbs to mean inspiration). We posit that these “upfixes” (i.e., upwards affixes) involve a productive schema enabling both stored and novel face–upfix dyads. In two experiments, participants viewed either conventional (e.g., lightbulb) or unconventional (e.g., clover-leaves) upfixes with faces which either matched (e.g., lightbulb/smile) or mismatched (e.g., lightbulb/frown). In Experiment 1, matching dyads sponsored higher comprehensibility ratings and faster response times, modulated by conventionality. In Experiment 2, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) revealed conventional upfixes, regardless of matching, evoked larger N250s, indicating perceptual expertise, but mismatching and unconventional dyads elicited larger semantic processing costs (N400) than conventional-matching dyads. Yet mismatches evoked a late negativity, suggesting congruent novel dyads remained construable compared with violations. These results support that combinatorial graphics involve a constrained productive schema, similar to the lexicon of language.
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20
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Pescuma VN, Ktori M, Beyersmann E, Sowman PF, Castles A, Crepaldi D. Automatic morpheme identification across development: Magnetoencephalography (MEG) evidence from fast periodic visual stimulation. Front Psychol 2022; 13:932952. [PMID: 36160574 PMCID: PMC9491359 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.932952] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2022] [Accepted: 08/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The present study combined magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings with fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) to investigate automatic neural responses to morphemes in developing and skilled readers. Native English-speaking children (N = 17, grade 5–6) and adults (N = 28) were presented with rapid streams of base stimuli (6 Hz) interleaved periodically with oddballs (i.e., every fifth item, oddball stimulation frequency: 1.2 Hz). In a manipulation-check condition, tapping into word recognition, oddballs featured familiar words (e.g., roll) embedded in a stream of consonant strings (e.g., ktlq). In the experimental conditions, the contrast between oddball and base stimuli was manipulated in order to probe selective stem and suffix identification in morphologically structured pseudowords (e.g., stem + suffix pseudowords such as softity embedded in nonstem + suffix pseudowords such as trumess). Neural responses at the oddball frequency and harmonics were analyzed at the sensor level using non-parametric cluster-based permutation tests. As expected, results in the manipulation-check condition revealed a word-selective response reflected by a predominantly left-lateralized cluster that emerged over temporal, parietal, and occipital sensors in both children and adults. However, across the experimental conditions, results yielded a differential pattern of oddball responses in developing and skilled readers. Children displayed a significant response that emerged in a mostly central occipital cluster for the condition tracking stem identification in the presence of suffixes (e.g., softity vs. trumess). In contrast, adult participants showed a significant response that emerged in a cluster located in central and left occipital sensors for the condition tracking suffix identification in the presence of stems (e.g., softity vs. stopust). The present results suggest that while the morpheme identification system in Grade 5–6 children is not yet adult-like, it is sufficiently mature to automatically analyze the morphemic structure of novel letter strings. These findings are discussed in the context of theoretical accounts of morphological processing across reading development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valentina N. Pescuma
- Cognitive Neuroscience, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Trieste, Italy
- *Correspondence: Valentina N. Pescuma,
| | - Maria Ktori
- Cognitive Neuroscience, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Trieste, Italy
| | - Elisabeth Beyersmann
- School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Macquarie University Centre for Reading, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Paul F. Sowman
- School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Anne Castles
- School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Macquarie University Centre for Reading, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Davide Crepaldi
- Cognitive Neuroscience, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Trieste, Italy
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21
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Opitz A, Bordag D, Furgoni A. Mental Representation of Word Family Structure: The Case of German Infinitives, Conversion Nouns and Other Morphologically Related Forms. Front Psychol 2022; 13:910849. [PMID: 35967669 PMCID: PMC9363782 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.910849] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2022] [Accepted: 06/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
This study investigates how two non-finite forms, infinitives and conversion nouns, are represented in the mind of L1 and L2 speakers and what is their relationship to other members of the corresponding word family. German native speakers and proficient German learners with Czech as L1 participated in four overt priming experiments involving a grammatical judgement task. We investigated the relationship between infinitives (Experiment 1) and conversion nouns (Experiment 2) and formally identical verbal or noun forms. We further focussed on the relationship between conversion nouns and regular nominal derivation forms with two derivational suffixes: -er and -ung (Experiments 3 and 4). Our results show that the two non-finite forms differ in their relations to other members of a word family and do not constitute a special class of non-finites as suggested in previous literature. While German infinitives seem to be closer related to finite verbal forms, conversion nouns behave in the same way as other regular nominal derivatives within the same word family. As for the German L1 and L2 contrast, no significant difference in the mental representation of the examined forms was found. This finding suggests that with respect to the explored phenomena, proficient learners rely on the same linguistic organisation as L1 speakers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andreas Opitz
- Herder-Institut, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Denisa Bordag
- Herder-Institut, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
- University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
| | - Alberto Furgoni
- Herder-Institut, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
- BCBL-Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
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22
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How the brain encodes morphological constraints during Chinese word reading: An EEG-fNIRS study. Cortex 2022; 154:184-196. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.05.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2021] [Revised: 07/13/2021] [Accepted: 05/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
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23
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Althaus N, Kotzor S, Schuster S, Lahiri A. Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: Vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections. Cognition 2022; 222:104963. [PMID: 35219027 PMCID: PMC8914613 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104963] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2020] [Revised: 11/05/2021] [Accepted: 11/16/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
This study is concerned with how vowel alternation, in combination with and without orthographic reflection of the vowel change, affects lexical access and the discrimination of morphologically related forms. Bengali inflected verb forms provide an ideal test case, since present tense verb forms undergo phonologically conditioned, predictable vowel raising. The mid-to-high alternations, but not the low-to-mid ones, are represented in the orthography. This results in three different cases: items with no change (NoDiff), items with a phonological change not represented in the orthography (PronDiff) and items for which both phonology and orthography change (OrthPronDiff). To determine whether these three cases differ in terms of lexical access and discrimination, we conducted two experiments. Experiment 1 was a cross-modal lexical decision task with auditory primes (1stperson and 3rdperson forms, e.g. [lekhe] or [likhi]) and visual targets (verbal noun; e.g. [lekha]). Experiment 2 uses eye tracking in a fragment completion task, in which auditory fragments (first syllable of 1st or 3rdperson form, e.g. [le-] from [lekhe]) were to be matched to one of two visual targets (full 1st and 3rdperson forms, [lekhe] vs. [likhi] in Bengali script). While the lexical decision task, a global measure of lexical access, did not show a difference between the cases, the eye-tracking experiment revealed effects of both phonology and orthography. Discrimination accuracy in the OrthPronDiff condition (vowel alternation represented in the orthography) was high. In the PronDiff condition, where phonologically differing forms are represented by the same graphemes, manual responses were at chance, although eye movements revealed that match and non-match were discriminated. Thus, our results indicate that phonological alternations which are not represented in spelling are difficult to process, whereas having orthographically distinct forms boosts discrimination performance, implying orthographically influenced mental phonological representations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nadja Althaus
- University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom; University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
| | - Sandra Kotzor
- University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, United Kingdom.
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Bulut T. Neural correlates of morphological processing: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis. Cortex 2022; 151:49-69. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.02.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/19/2021] [Revised: 09/02/2021] [Accepted: 02/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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25
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Yang J, van den Bosch A, Frank SL. Unsupervised Text Segmentation Predicts Eye Fixations During Reading. Front Artif Intell 2022; 5:731615. [PMID: 35280234 PMCID: PMC8905434 DOI: 10.3389/frai.2022.731615] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2021] [Accepted: 01/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Words typically form the basis of psycholinguistic and computational linguistic studies about sentence processing. However, recent evidence shows the basic units during reading, i.e., the items in the mental lexicon, are not always words, but could also be sub-word and supra-word units. To recognize these units, human readers require a cognitive mechanism to learn and detect them. In this paper, we assume eye fixations during reading reveal the locations of the cognitive units, and that the cognitive units are analogous with the text units discovered by unsupervised segmentation models. We predict eye fixations by model-segmented units on both English and Dutch text. The results show the model-segmented units predict eye fixations better than word units. This finding suggests that the predictive performance of model-segmented units indicates their plausibility as cognitive units. The Less-is-Better (LiB) model, which finds the units that minimize both long-term and working memory load, offers advantages both in terms of prediction score and efficiency among alternative models. Our results also suggest that modeling the least-effort principle for the management of long-term and working memory can lead to inferring cognitive units. Overall, the study supports the theory that the mental lexicon stores not only words but also smaller and larger units, suggests that fixation locations during reading depend on these units, and shows that unsupervised segmentation models can discover these units.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jinbiao Yang
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- *Correspondence: Jinbiao Yang
| | | | - Stefan L. Frank
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- Stefan L. Frank
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Loui S, Protopapas A, Orfanidou E. Asymmetric Morphological Priming Among Inflected and Derived Verbs and Nouns in Greek. Front Psychol 2021; 12:658189. [PMID: 34867572 PMCID: PMC8636029 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.658189] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2021] [Accepted: 09/29/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
The present study examined differences between inflectional and derivational morphology using Greek nouns and verbs with masked priming (with both short and long stimulus onset asynchrony) and long-lag priming. A lexical decision task to inflected noun and verb targets was used to test whether their processing is differentially facilitated by prior presentation of their stem in words of the same grammatical class (inflectional morphology) or of a different grammatical class (derivational morphology). Differences in semantics, syntactic information, and morphological complexity between inflected and derived word pairs (both nouns and verbs) were minimized by unusually tight control of stimuli as permitted by Greek morphology. Results showed that morphological relations affected processing of morphologically complex Greek words (nouns and verbs) across prime durations (50–250ms) as well as when items intervened between primes and targets. In two of the four experiments (Experiments 1 and 3), inflectionally related primes produced significantly greater effects than derivationally related primes suggesting differences in processing inflectional versus derivational morphological relations, which may disappear when processing is less dependent on semantic effects (Experiment 4). Priming effects differed for verb vs. noun targets with long SOA priming (Experiment 3), consistent with processing differences between complex words of different grammatical class (nouns and verbs) when semantic effects are maximized. Taken together, results demonstrate that inflectional and derivational relations differentially affect processing complex words of different grammatical class (nouns and verbs). This finding indicates that distinctions of morphological relation (inflectional vs. derivational) are not of the same kind as distinctions of grammatical class (nouns vs. verbs). Asymmetric differences among inflected and derived verbs and nouns seem to depend on semantic effects and/or processing demands modulating priming effects very early in lexical processing of morphologically complex written words, consistent with models of lexical processing positing early access to morphological structure and early influence of semantics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sofia Loui
- Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | | | - Eleni Orfanidou
- Department of Psychology, American College of Greece, Athens, Greece
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Manouilidou C, Nerantzini M, Chiappetta BM, Mesulam MM, Thompson CK. What Language Disorders Reveal About the Mechanisms of Morphological Processing. Front Psychol 2021; 12:701802. [PMID: 34912261 PMCID: PMC8667867 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.701802] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2021] [Accepted: 10/27/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
We addressed an understudied topic in the literature of language disorders, that is, processing of derivational morphology, a domain which requires integration of semantic and syntactic knowledge. Current psycholinguistic literature suggests that word processing involves morpheme recognition, which occurs immediately upon encountering a complex word. Subsequent processes take place in order to interpret the combination of stem and affix. We investigated the abilities of individuals with agrammatic (PPA-G) and logopenic (PPA-L) variants of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and individuals with stroke-induced agrammatic aphasia (StrAg) to process pseudowords which violate either the syntactic (word class) rules (*reheavy) or the semantic compatibility (argument structure specifications of the base form) rules (*reswim). To this end, we quantified aspects of word knowledge and explored how the distinct deficits of the populations under investigation affect their performance. Thirty brain-damaged individuals and 10 healthy controls participated in a lexical decision task. We hypothesized that the two agrammatic groups (PPA-G and StrAg) would have difficulties detecting syntactic violations, while no difficulties were expected for PPA-L. Accuracy and Reaction Time (RT) patterns indicated: the PPA-L group made fewer errors but yielded slower RTs compared to the two agrammatic groups which did not differ from one another. Accuracy rates suggest that individuals with PPA-L distinguish *reheavy from *reswim, reflecting access to and differential processing of syntactic vs. semantic violations. In contrast, the two agrammatic groups do not distinguish between *reheavy and *reswim. The lack of difference stems from a particularly impaired performance in detecting syntactic violations, as they were equally unsuccessful at detecting *reheavy and *reswim. Reduced grammatical abilities assessed through language measures are a significant predictor for this performance, suggesting that the "hardware" to process syntactic information is impaired. Therefore, they can only judge violations semantically where both *reheavy and *reswim fail to pass as semantically ill-formed. This finding further suggests that impaired grammatical knowledge can affect word level processing as well. Results are in line with the psycholinguistic literature which postulates the existence of various stages in accessing complex pseudowords, highlighting the contribution of syntactic/grammatical knowledge. Further, it points to the worth of studying impaired language performance for informing normal language processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christina Manouilidou
- Department of Comparative and General Linguistics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
| | | | - Brianne M. Chiappetta
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States
| | - M. Marsel Mesulam
- Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States
| | - Cynthia K. Thompson
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States
- Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States
- Department of Neurology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States
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28
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Zeng Y, Fiorentino R, Zhang J. Electrophysiological Signatures of Perceiving Alternated Tone in Mandarin Chinese: Mismatch Negativity to Underlying Tone Conflict. Front Psychol 2021; 12:735593. [PMID: 34646215 PMCID: PMC8504678 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.735593] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2021] [Accepted: 08/23/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Although phonological alternation is prevalent in languages, the process of perceiving phonologically alternated sounds is poorly understood, especially at the neurolinguistic level. We examined the process of perceiving Mandarin 3rd tone sandhi (T3 + T3 → T2 + T3) with a mismatch negativity (MMN) experiment. Our design has two independent variables (whether the deviant undergoes tone sandhi; whether the standard and the deviant have matched underlying tone). These two independent variables modulated ERP responses in both the first and the second syllables. Notably, despite the apparent segmental conflict between the standard and the deviant in all conditions, MMN is only observed when neither the standard nor the deviant undergoes tone sandhi, suggesting that discovering the underlying representation of an alternated sound could interfere with the generation of MMN. A tentative model with three hypothesized underlying processing mechanisms is proposed to explain the observed latency and amplitude differences across conditions. The results are also discussed in light of the potential electrophysiological signatures involved in the process of perceiving alternated sounds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuyu Zeng
- Phonetics and Psycholinguistics Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States.,Neurolinguistics and Language Processing Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States
| | - Robert Fiorentino
- Neurolinguistics and Language Processing Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States
| | - Jie Zhang
- Phonetics and Psycholinguistics Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States
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29
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Zhang EH, Lai XX, Li D, Lei VLC, Chen Y, Cao HW. Electrophysiological Correlates of Character Transposition in the Left and Right Visual Fields. Front Psychol 2021; 12:684849. [PMID: 34421735 PMCID: PMC8371268 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.684849] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2021] [Accepted: 06/30/2021] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
This study examined the brain activity elicited by the hemispheric asymmetries and morpheme transposition of two-character Chinese words (canonical and transposed word) and pseudowords using event-related potentials (ERPs) with a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. Electrophysiological results showed facilitation effects for canonical words with centrally presented visual field (CVF) and right visual field (RVF) presentations but not with left visual field (LVF) presentations, as reflected by less negative N400 amplitudes. Moreover, more positive late positive component (LPC) amplitudes were observed for both canonical words and transposed words irrespective of the visual fields. More importantly, transposed words elicited a more negative N400 amplitude and a less positive LPC amplitude compared with the amplitudes elicited by canonical words for CVF and RVF presentations. For LVF presentations, transposed words elicited a less negative N250 amplitude compared with canonical words, and there was no significant difference between canonical words and transposed words in the N400 effect. Taken together, we concluded that character transposition facilitated the mapping of whole-word orthographic representation to semantic information in the LVF, as reflected by the N250 component, and such morpheme transposition influenced whole-word semantic processing in CVF and RVF presentations, as reflected by N400 and LPC components.
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Affiliation(s)
- Er-Hu Zhang
- Research Center for Language, Cognition and Language Application, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
| | - Xue-Xian Lai
- Research Center for Language, Cognition and Language Application, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
| | - Defeng Li
- Centre for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition, University of Macau, Macau, China
| | - Victoria Lai Cheng Lei
- Centre for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition, University of Macau, Macau, China
| | - Yiqiang Chen
- Centre for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition, University of Macau, Macau, China
| | - Hong-Wen Cao
- Research Center for Language, Cognition and Language Application, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China.,Centre for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition, University of Macau, Macau, China
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30
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Mesulam MM, Coventry CA, Rader BM, Kuang A, Sridhar J, Martersteck A, Zhang H, Thompson CK, Weintraub S, Rogalski EJ. Modularity and granularity across the language network-A primary progressive aphasia perspective. Cortex 2021; 141:482-496. [PMID: 34153680 PMCID: PMC8319115 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.05.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2020] [Revised: 03/22/2021] [Accepted: 05/05/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Tests of grammar, repetition and semantics were administered to 62 prospectively enrolled right-handed participants with primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Structural brain images were obtained at the time of testing. Regression analyses uncovered 3 clearly delineated non-overlapping left hemisphere clusters where cortical thinning (atrophy) was significantly correlated with impaired performance. A morphosyntactic cluster associated with the grammaticality of sentence construction was located predominantly within the middle and inferior frontal gyri; a phonolexical cluster associated with language repetition was located in the temporoparietal junction; a lexicosemantic cluster associated with object naming and single word comprehension was located within the middle and anterior parts of the temporal lobe and extended into insular, orbitofrontal, and mediotemporal cortices. Commonality analyses were undertaken to explore whether these three clusters were as modular as indicated by the regression analyses or whether some underlying functional granularity could be uncovered. Modularity was defined as the exclusive association of an anatomical cluster with a single type of language task whereas granularity was defined as the association of a single anatomical cluster with more than one type of language task. The commonality analyses revealed a predominantly modular organization with quantitatively minor instances of inter-cluster granularity. The results also reconfirmed previous work on PPA which had shown that Wernicke's area is not essential for word comprehension, that naming impairments can be based either on deficits of lexical retrieval or word comprehension, and that the essential substrates of word comprehension encompass much wider areas of the temporal lobe than the temporal pole. The anatomy of the language network has traditionally been explored through patients with focal cerebrovascular accidents and experiments based on functional activation. Investigations on PPA are showing that focal neurodegenerations can add new perspectives to existing models of the language network.
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Affiliation(s)
- M-Marsel Mesulam
- Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA; Davee Department of Neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA.
| | - Christina A Coventry
- Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA
| | | | - Alan Kuang
- Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Department of Preventive Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - Jaiashre Sridhar
- Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - Adam Martersteck
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
| | - Hui Zhang
- Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA; Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Department of Preventive Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - Cynthia K Thompson
- Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA; Northwestern University School of Communication, Evanston, IL, USA
| | - Sandra Weintraub
- Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA; Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - Emily J Rogalski
- Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA; Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Chicago, IL, USA
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31
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Westermann G, Jones S. Origins of Dissociations in the English Past Tense: A Synthetic Brain Imaging Model. Front Psychol 2021; 12:688908. [PMID: 34276514 PMCID: PMC8283012 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.688908] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2021] [Accepted: 05/31/2021] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Brain imaging studies of English past tense inflection have found dissociations between regular and irregular verbs, but no coherent picture has emerged to explain how these dissociations arise. Here we use synthetic brain imaging on a neural network model to provide a mechanistic account of the origins of such dissociations. The model suggests that dissociations between regional activation patterns in verb inflection emerge in an adult processing system that has been shaped through experience-dependent structural brain development. Although these dissociations appear to be between regular and irregular verbs, they arise in the model from a combination of statistical properties including frequency, relationships to other verbs, and phonological complexity, without a causal role for regularity or semantics. These results are consistent with the notion that all inflections are produced in a single associative mechanism. The model generates predictions about the patterning of active brain regions for different verbs that can be tested in future imaging studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gert Westermann
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom
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32
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Zhao S, Wu Y, Tsang YK, Sui X, Zhu Z. Morpho-semantic analysis of ambiguous morphemes in Chinese compound word recognition: An fMRI study. Neuropsychologia 2021; 157:107862. [PMID: 33865849 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107862] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2020] [Revised: 03/31/2021] [Accepted: 04/14/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
The present fMRI study examined the neural basis of processing context-supported or -unsupported interpretations of ambiguous morphemes during Chinese compound word reading in a masked priming lexical decision task. Targets were Chinese bimorphemic words that contained ambiguous morphemes. Prime words contained the same ambiguous morphemes with either the same meanings (context-supported interpretation) or different ones (context-unsupported interpretation). Lexical-level semantic sharing and unrelated control conditions were also included. Compared to the unrelated control condition, the context-supported morphemic meaning was associated with increased activity in the left SFG and bilateral MTG, and this priming effect could be dissociated from that of the lexical-level semantic-related condition. In broader brain regions, including the left SFG, bilateral MTG, left STG, right IOG, and left precuneus, the context-unsupported meaning condition showed decreased activity compared with the unrelated control condition. These findings indicate that both the context-supported and -unsupported meanings evoke significant priming effects, however, they differ from each other with different brain basis, providing new insight into the neural substrates of ambiguous morpheme processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Simin Zhao
- School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, China
| | - Yan Wu
- School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, China.
| | - Yiu-Kei Tsang
- Department of Education Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China
| | - Xue Sui
- Institute of Psychology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, 116029, China
| | - Zude Zhu
- Collaborative Innovation Center for Language Competence, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, 221009, China.
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33
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Yablonski M, Ben-Shachar M. Sensitivity to word structure in adult Hebrew readers is associated with microstructure of the ventral reading pathways. Cortex 2020; 128:234-253. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.03.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/03/2019] [Revised: 02/17/2020] [Accepted: 03/26/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
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34
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Abstract
In this paper, I discuss nominal compound formation in language contact situations, the question being of how compounding in language mixing can inform both theories of mixing and theories of word-hood. This contributes to our further understanding of how word formation operates in cases of language mixing and what exactly is being mixed in mixing, i.e., words vs. units smaller than words, e.g., stems or roots. Compounding is important to answer this question, as languages differ with respect to the units they employ for compound formation, i.e., phrases vs. stems. The data to be discussed will be a mixture of materials that have already been published in the literature and newly collected data and involve several mixing varieties, namely, Greek–English, Greek–Italian, Greek–Turkish, Turkish–Norwegian, Turkish–Dutch, and French–Dutch. I then offer an analysis using the tools of syntactic models of word formation (e.g., distributed morphology), assuming a decompositional approach.
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Affiliation(s)
- Artemis Alexiadou
- Institute of English and American Studies, English Linguistics, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.,Research Area: Syntax and Lexicon, Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin, Germany
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35
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Bitan T, Weiss Y, Katzir T, Truzman T. Morphological decomposition compensates for imperfections in phonological decoding. Neural evidence from typical and dyslexic readers of an opaque orthography. Cortex 2020; 130:172-191. [PMID: 32659520 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.05.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/21/2019] [Revised: 04/17/2020] [Accepted: 05/18/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
The current study examined the widely held, but un-tested, assumption that morphological decomposition can compensate for missing phonological information in reading opaque orthographies. In addition, we tested whether morphological decomposition can compensate for the phonological decoding deficits in readers with dyslexia. Hebrew provides a unique opportunity to test these questions as it has a rich Semitic morphology, and two versions of script: a transparent orthography (with diacritic marks, 'pointed') and an opaque orthography (without diacritic marks, 'un-pointed'). In two experiments, one behavioral and one fMRI, skilled and dyslexic readers read aloud Hebrew nouns: half bi-morphemic (root + pattern) and half mono-morphemic (non-decomposable). Each word was presented both in the transparent orthography (pointed), and in the opaque orthography (un-pointed). While skilled readers were faster, and showed no effects of diacritics or morphology, dyslexic readers read pointed words more slowly than un-pointed words and bi-morphemic words faster than mono-morphemic words. The imaging results showed: 1) In both groups a morphological effect was found in un-pointed words, in left inferior and middle frontal gyri, associated with morpho-phonological decomposition. 2) Only readers with dyslexia showed a morphological effect in pointed words in the left occipito-temporal cortex, associated with orthographic processing. 3) Dyslexic readers also showed a positive association between morphological awareness and activation in the left occipito-temporal cortex during reading of all words, and activation in inferior frontal cortex during reading of un-pointed bi-morphemic words. Altogether, these findings suggest that in both typical and dyslexic readers morphological decomposition can compensate for the missing phonological information in an opaque orthography. The results also show that readers with dyslexia can rely on morphological decomposition to compensate for their deficits in phonological decoding. Finally, these results highlight the way in which unique language specific properties shape the neural mechanisms underlying typical and atypical reading.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tali Bitan
- Department of Psychology and IIPDM, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel; Department of Speech Language Pathology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
| | - Yael Weiss
- Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Tami Katzir
- Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
| | - Tammar Truzman
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and IIPDM, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
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36
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Schwering SC, MacDonald MC. Verbal Working Memory as Emergent from Language Comprehension and Production. Front Hum Neurosci 2020; 14:68. [PMID: 32226368 PMCID: PMC7081770 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.00068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2019] [Accepted: 02/13/2020] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
This article reviews current models of verbal working memory and considers the role of language comprehension and long-term memory in the ability to maintain and order verbal information for short periods of time. While all models of verbal working memory posit some interaction with long-term memory, few have considered the character of these long-term representations or how they might affect performance on verbal working memory tasks. Similarly, few models have considered how comprehension processes and production processes might affect performance in verbal working memory tasks. Modern theories of comprehension emphasize that people learn a vast web of correlated information about the language and the world and must activate that information from long-term memory to cope with the demands of language input. To date, there has been little consideration in theories of verbal working memory for how this rich input from comprehension would affect the nature of temporary memory. There has also been relatively little attention to the degree to which language production processes naturally manage serial order of verbal information. The authors argue for an emergent model of verbal working memory supported by a rich, distributed long-term memory for language. On this view, comprehension processes provide encoding in verbal working memory tasks, and production processes maintenance, serial ordering, and recall. Moreover, the computational capacity to maintain and order information varies with language experience. Implications for theories of working memory, comprehension, and production are considered.
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37
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Abstract
Morphemes (e.g. [tune], [-ful], [-ly]) are the basic blocks with which complex meaning is built. Here, I explore the critical role that morpho-syntactic rules play in forming the meaning of morphologically complex words, from two primary standpoints: (i) how semantically rich stem morphemes (e.g. explode, bake, post) combine with syntactic operators (e.g. -ion, -er, -age) to output a semantically predictable result; (ii) how this process can be understood in terms of mathematical operations, easily allowing the brain to generate representations of novel morphemes and comprehend novel words. With these ideas in mind, I offer a model of morphological processing that incorporates semantic and morpho-syntactic operations in service to meaning composition, and discuss how such a model could be implemented in the human brain. This article is part of the theme issue 'Towards mechanistic models of meaning composition'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura Gwilliams
- Psychology Department, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA
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38
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For a probabilistic and multidisciplinary approach to the investigation of morphological processing. Cortex 2019; 116:1-3. [PMID: 31174718 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2019.05.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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39
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Zou L, Packard JL, Xia Z, Liu Y, Shu H. Morphological and Whole-Word Semantic Processing Are Distinct: Event Related Potentials Evidence From Spoken Word Recognition in Chinese. Front Hum Neurosci 2019; 13:133. [PMID: 31057382 PMCID: PMC6478770 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.00133] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2018] [Accepted: 04/03/2019] [Indexed: 01/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Behavioral and imaging studies in alphabetic languages have shown that morphological processing is a discrete and independent element of lexical access. However, there is no explicit marker of morphological structure in Chinese complex words, such that the extent to which morpheme meaning is related to word meaning is unknown. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were used in the present study to investigate the dissociation of morphemic and whole-word meaning in an auditory-auditory primed lexical decision task. All the prime and target words are compounds consisting of two Chinese morphemes. The relationship between morpheme and whole-word meaning was manipulated while controlling the phonology and orthography of the first syllable in each prime-target pair. A clear dissociation was found between morphemic and whole-word meaning on N400 amplitude and topography. Specifically, sharing a morpheme produced a larger N400 in the anterior-central electrode sites, while sharing whole-word meaning produced a smaller N400 in central-posterior electrode sites. In addition, the morphological N400 effect was negatively correlated with the participants' reading ability, with better readers needing less orthographic information to distinguish different morphemes in compound words. These findings indicate that morphological and whole-word meaning are dissociated in spoken Chinese compound word recognition and that even in the spoken language modality, good readers are better able to access the meaning of individual morphemes in Chinese compound word processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lijuan Zou
- School of Psychology and Education, Zaozhuang University, Zaozhuang, China
| | - Jerome L. Packard
- Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, United States
| | - Zhichao Xia
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Youyi Liu
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Hua Shu
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
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40
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Bekemeier N, Brenner D, Klepp A, Biermann-Ruben K, Indefrey P. Electrophysiological correlates of concept type shifts. PLoS One 2019; 14:e0212624. [PMID: 30835763 PMCID: PMC6400391 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0212624] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2018] [Accepted: 02/06/2019] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
A recent semantic theory of nominal concepts by Löbner [1] posits that–due to their inherent uniqueness and relationality properties–noun concepts can be classified into four concept types (CTs): sortal, individual, relational, functional. For sortal nouns the default determination is indefinite (a stone), for individual nouns it is definite (the sun), for relational and functional nouns it is possessive (his ear, his father). Incongruent determination leads to a concept type shift: his father (functional concept: unique, relational)–a father (sortal concept: non-unique, non-relational). Behavioral studies on CT shifts have demonstrated a CT congruence effect, with congruent determiners triggering faster lexical decision times on the subsequent noun than incongruent ones [2, 3]. The present ERP study investigated electrophysiological correlates of congruent and incongruent determination in German noun phrases, and specifically, whether the CT congruence effect could be indexed by such classic ERP components as N400, LAN or P600. If incongruent determination affects the lexical retrieval or semantic integration of the noun, it should be reflected in the amplitude of the N400 component. If, however, CT congruence is processed by the same neuronal mechanisms that underlie morphosyntactic processing, incongruent determination should trigger LAN or/and P600. These predictions were tested in two ERP studies. In Experiment 1, participants just listened to noun phrases. In Experiment 2, they performed a wellformedness judgment task. The processing of (in)congruent CTs (his sun vs. the sun) was compared to the processing of morphosyntactic and semantic violations in control conditions. Whereas the control conditions elicited classic electrophysiological violation responses (N400, LAN, & P600), CT-incongruences did not. Instead they showed novel concept-type specific response patterns. The absence of the classic ERP components suggests that CT-incongruent determination is not perceived as a violation of the semantic or morphosyntactic structure of the noun phrase.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalia Bekemeier
- Department of Linguistics, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Dorothea Brenner
- Department of Linguistics, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Anne Klepp
- Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Katja Biermann-Ruben
- Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Peter Indefrey
- Department of Linguistics, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany.,Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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Wheeldon L, Schuster S, Pliatsikas C, Malpass D, Lahiri A. Beyond decomposition: Processing zero-derivations in English visual word recognition. Cortex 2018; 116:176-191. [PMID: 30322663 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.09.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/06/2017] [Revised: 03/31/2018] [Accepted: 09/04/2018] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Four experiments investigate the effects of covert morphological complexity during visual word recognition. Zero-derivations occur in English in which a change of word class occurs without any change in surface form (e.g., a boat-to boat; to soak-a soak). Boat is object-derived and is a basic noun (N), whereas soak is action-derived and is a basic verb (V). As the suffix {-ing} is only attached to verbs, deriving boating from its base, requires two steps, boat(N) > boat(V) > boating(V), while soaking can be derived in one step from soak(V). Experiments 1 to 3 used masked priming at different prime durations to test matched sets of one- and two-step verbs for morphological (soaking-SOAK) and semantic priming (jolting-SOAK). Experiment 4 employed a delayed-priming paradigm in which the full verb forms (soaking and boating) were primed by noun and verb phrases (a soak/to soak, a boat/to boat). In both paradigms, different morphological priming patterns were observed for one-step and two-step verbs, demonstrating that morphological processing cannot be reduced to surface form-based segmentation.
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