1
|
Borne A, Lemaitre C, Bulteau C, Baciu M, Perrone-Bertolotti M. Unveiling the cognitive network organization through cognitive performance. Sci Rep 2024; 14:11645. [PMID: 38773246 PMCID: PMC11109237 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-62234-5] [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: 11/17/2023] [Accepted: 05/15/2024] [Indexed: 05/23/2024] Open
Abstract
The evaluation of cognitive functions interactions has become increasingly implemented in the cognition exploration. In the present study, we propose to examine the organization of the cognitive network in healthy participants through the analysis of behavioral performances in several cognitive domains. Specifically, we aim to explore cognitive interactions profiles, in terms of cognitive network, and as a function of participants' handedness. To this end, we proposed several behavioral tasks evaluating language, memory, executive functions, and social cognition performances in 175 young healthy right-handed and left-handed participants and we analyzed cognitive scores, from a network perspective, using graph theory. Our results highlight the existence of intricate interactions between cognitive functions both within and beyond the same cognitive domain. Language functions are interrelated with executive functions and memory in healthy cognitive functioning and assume a central role in the cognitive network. Interestingly, for similar high performance, our findings unveiled differential organizations within the cognitive network between right-handed and left-handed participants, with variations observed both at a global and nodal level. This original integrative network approach to the study of cognition provides new insights into cognitive interactions and modulations. It allows a more global understanding and consideration of cognitive functioning, from which complex behaviors emerge.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- A Borne
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000, Grenoble, France
| | - C Lemaitre
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000, Grenoble, France
| | - C Bulteau
- Service de Neurochirurgie Pédiatrique, Hôpital Fondation Adolphe de Rothschild, 75019, Paris, France
- MC2 Lab, Institut de Psychologie, Université de Paris-Cité, 92100, Boulogne-Billancourt, France
| | - M Baciu
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000, Grenoble, France
| | - M Perrone-Bertolotti
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000, Grenoble, France.
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
May KE, Scofield J. Inhibitory Control and Patterns of Errors in Resolution of Syntactically Ambiguous Sentences. JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 2024; 51:271-287. [PMID: 36514296 DOI: 10.1017/s0305000922000678] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
Sentences that have more than one possible meaning are said to be syntactically ambiguous (SA). Because the correct interpretation of these sentences can be unclear, resolving SA sentences can be cognitively demanding for children, particularly with regards to inhibitory control (IC). In this study we provide three lines of evidence supporting the importance of IC in SA resolution. First, we show that children with higher IC resolve more SA sentences correctly. Second, we show that SA resolution is worse on tasks that place higher demands on IC, even for children with high IC. Third, we show that children with higher IC make different types of SA errors than children with lower IC. This study expands understanding of the cognitive skills underlying language and suggests a need to consider task demands on IC when developing educational curriculums.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Kaitlyn E May
- 1Department of Educational Studies in Psychology, Research Methodology, and Counseling, The University of Alabama, USA
| | - Jason Scofield
- 2Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The University of Alabama, USA
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Martin IA, Goupell MJ, Huang YT. Children's syntactic parsing and sentence comprehension with a degraded auditory signal. THE JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2022; 151:699. [PMID: 35232101 PMCID: PMC8816517 DOI: 10.1121/10.0009271] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2020] [Revised: 10/15/2021] [Accepted: 12/16/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
During sentence comprehension, young children anticipate syntactic structures using early-arriving words and have difficulties revising incorrect predictions using late-arriving words. However, nearly all work to date has focused on syntactic parsing in idealized speech environments, and little is known about how children's strategies for predicting and revising meanings are affected by signal degradation. This study compares comprehension of active and passive sentences in natural and vocoded speech. In a word-interpretation task, 5-year-olds inferred the meanings of novel words in sentences that (1) encouraged agent-first predictions (e.g., The blicket is eating the seal implies The blicket is the agent), (2) required revising predictions (e.g., The blicket is eaten by the seal implies The blicket is the theme), or (3) weakened predictions by placing familiar nouns in sentence-initial position (e.g., The seal is eating/eaten by the blicket). When novel words promoted agent-first predictions, children misinterpreted passives as actives, and errors increased with vocoded compared to natural speech. However, when familiar words were sentence-initial that weakened agent-first predictions, children accurately interpreted passives, with no signal-degradation effects. This demonstrates that signal quality interacts with interpretive processes during sentence comprehension, and the impacts of speech degradation are greatest when late-arriving information conflicts with predictions.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Isabel A Martin
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
| | - Matthew J Goupell
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
| | - Yi Ting Huang
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Blything LP, Järvikivi J, Toth AG, Arnhold A. The Influence of Focus Marking on Pronoun Resolution in Dialogue Context. Front Psychol 2021; 12:684639. [PMID: 34381399 PMCID: PMC8351791 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.684639] [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: 03/23/2021] [Accepted: 06/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Using visual world eye-tracking, we examined whether adults (N = 58) and children (N = 37; 3;1-6;3) use linguistic focussing devices to help resolve ambiguous pronouns. Participants listened to English dialogues about potential referents of an ambiguous pronoun he. Four conditions provided prosodic focus marking to the grammatical subject or to the object, which were either additionally it-clefted or not. A reference condition focussed neither the subject nor object. Adult online data revealed that linguistic focussing via prosodic marking enhanced subject preference, and overrode it in the case of object focus, regardless of the presence of clefts. Children's processing was also influenced by prosodic marking; however, their performance across conditions showed some differences from adults, as well as a complex interaction with both their memory and language skills. Offline interpretations showed no effects of focus in either group, suggesting that while multiple cues are processed, subjecthood and first mention dominate the final interpretation in cases of conflict.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Liam P Blything
- Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.,Department of Psychology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
| | - Juhani Järvikivi
- Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
| | - Abigail G Toth
- Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.,Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
| | - Anja Arnhold
- Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Davies C, Lingwood J, Ivanova B, Arunachalam S. Three-year-olds' comprehension of contrastive and descriptive adjectives: Evidence for contrastive inference. Cognition 2021; 212:104707. [PMID: 33957498 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104707] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2020] [Revised: 02/02/2021] [Accepted: 03/26/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Combining information from adjectives with the nouns they modify is essential for comprehension. Previous research suggests that preschoolers do not always integrate adjectives and nouns, and may instead over-rely on noun information when processing referring expressions (Fernald, Thorpe, & Marchman, 2010; Thorpe, Baumgartner, & Fernald, 2006). This disjointed processing has implications for pragmatics, apparently preventing under-fives from making contrastive inferences (Huang & Snedeker, 2013). Using a novel experimental design that allows preschoolers time to demonstrate their abilities in adjective-noun integration and in contrastive inference, two visual world experiments investigate how English-speaking three-year-olds (N = 73, Mage = 44 months) process size adjectives across syntactic (prenominal; postnominal) and pragmatic (descriptive; contrastive) contexts. We show that preschoolers are able to integrate adjectives and nouns to resolve reference accurately by the end of the referring expression, in a variety of pragmatic and syntactic contexts and in the presence of multiple distractors. We reveal for the first time that they can contrastively infer, given a slowed speed of presentation and visually salient size contrasts. Our findings provide evidence for a continuity in the development of pragmatic skills, which do not appear to be linked to children's language proficiency or speed of processing.
Collapse
|
6
|
Qi Z, Love J, Fisher C, Brown-Schmidt S. Referential context and executive functioning influence children's resolution of syntactic ambiguity. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 2020; 46:1922-1947. [PMID: 32584080 DOI: 10.1037/xlm0000886] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Classic studies reveal two striking differences between preschoolers and adults in online sentence comprehension. Adults (a) recruit referential context cues to guide syntactic parsing, interpreting an ambiguous phrase as a modifier if a modifier is needed to single out the intended referent among multiple options, and (b) use late-arriving information to recover from misinterpretation. Five-year-olds fail on both counts, appearing insensitive to the referential context and often failing to recover from parsing errors (Trueswell, Sekerina, Hill, & Logrip, 1999). But other findings suggest that 5-year-olds show delayed rather than absent sensitivity to the referential context, and that individual differences in executive functioning predict children's ability to recover from garden-path errors. In 2 experiments, we built on these findings, focusing on whether children recruit referential-context cues if given time to do so. Children heard temporarily ambiguous instructions (e.g., Put the frog on the pond into the tent), while we monitored their eye-gaze and actions. We used a slow speech rate, and manipulated referential context between rather than within subjects, to give children time to bring referential context cues into play. Across experiments, eye-movement and action analyses revealed emerging sensitivity to the referential context. Moreover, error rates and eye-movement patterns indicating failures to revise were predicted by individual differences in executive function (scores in Simon Says and Flanker tasks). These data suggest that children, like adults, use referential context information in syntactic processing under some circumstances; the findings are also consistent with a role for domain-general executive function in resolution of syntactic ambiguity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
Collapse
|