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Boudelaa S, Perea M, Carreiras M. Are the early stages of orthographic processing universal? Insights from masked priming with Semitic words. Psychon Bull Rev 2024:10.3758/s13423-024-02563-8. [PMID: 39302500 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-024-02563-8] [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] [Accepted: 07/29/2024] [Indexed: 09/22/2024]
Abstract
Two views contend to account for the processes at play during the early stages of visual word recognition. The first holds that these stages are not modulated by the idiosyncratic properties of different languages. The second maintains that the structural properties of the language determine the weighting of the different domains of linguistic knowledge (e.g., orthographic and morphological domains may be differentially weighted across languages). To explore this question, we focused on orthographic priming in Arabic. In this Semitic language, lexical representations are claimed to be based on morphological similarity, with little or no role for orthographic similarity. We conducted two masked priming experiments using the yes-no and go/no-go versions of the lexical decision task to determine if Arabic target words (e.g., مدير 'mudyr', director) are facilitated by nonword primes that are orthographically but not morphologically related (i.e., pairs share neither a root nor a word pattern; e.g.,ماير 'maAyr') relative to unrelated primes. Results showed faster responses for the orthographically related target words than for the unrelated target words in the two experiments. These findings favor the view that the early phases of visual word processing in Semitic and Indo-European languages are fundamentally the same.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sami Boudelaa
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, UAEU, Al Ain, UAE.
| | - Manuel Perea
- Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain
- Nebrija University, Madrid, Spain
- Basque Center for Cognition, Brain, and Language, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
| | - Manuel Carreiras
- Basque Center for Cognition, Brain, and Language, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
- IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain
- University of the Basque Country, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain
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2
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Alharbi DH, Clegg J, Öztürk Ö. Comprehension of verb morphology in Arabic-speaking children with and without developmental language disorder. CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 2024:1-27. [PMID: 39287150 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2024.2394544] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2023] [Revised: 07/05/2024] [Accepted: 08/14/2024] [Indexed: 09/19/2024]
Abstract
Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) experience difficulties with a range of morphosyntactic skills, particularly with tense and subject - verb agreement. Many studies have examined verb-morphology production in children with DLD. We extend this line of research by profiling verb-morphology comprehension in 67 monolingual Saudi Arabic-speaking children, comprising 33 with DLD (M = 61 months, SD = 10.70), and 34 age-matched typically developing (TD) children (M = 63 months, SD = 8.94). Children completed a novel picture selection task developed to assess their comprehension of verb tense, gender agreement, and number agreement. Children with DLD scored significantly lower than TD children on the verb morphology comprehension task. They showed greater difficulty identifying verb tense forms, particularly future tense. They also demonstrated lower accuracy in identifying subject-verb agreement in general, with specific difficulty in comprehending masculine verbs, and singular verbs. These findings were compared with production verb-morphology data from previous Arabic studies. Overall, this study highlights the challenges experienced by Arabic-speaking children with DLD in comprehending verb morphology, particularly tense and subject-verb agreement inflections. These findings can be used to tailor appropriate assessment designs and interventions for an Arabic-speaking DLD population.
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Affiliation(s)
- Deya H Alharbi
- School of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Health, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
- Health Communication Sciences Department, College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| | - Judy Clegg
- School of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Health, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
| | - Özge Öztürk
- School of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Health, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
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3
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Seghier ML, Boudelaa S. Constraining current neuroanatomical models of reading: the view from Arabic. Brain Struct Funct 2024:10.1007/s00429-024-02827-y. [PMID: 38969935 DOI: 10.1007/s00429-024-02827-y] [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: 09/26/2023] [Accepted: 06/17/2024] [Indexed: 07/07/2024]
Abstract
There is a growing interest in imaging understudied orthographies to unravel their neuronal correlates and their implications for existing computational and neuroanatomical models. Here, we review current brain mapping literature about Arabic words. We first offer a succinct description of some unique linguistic features of Arabic that challenge current cognitive models of reading. We then appraise the existing functional neuroimaging studies that investigated written Arabic word processing. Our review revealed that (1) Arabic is still understudied, (2) the most investigated features concerned the effects of vowelling and diglossia in Arabic reading, (3) findings were not always discussed in the light of existing reading models such as the dual route cascaded, the triangle, and the connectionist dual process models, and (4) current evidence is unreliable when it comes to the exact neuronal pathways that sustain Arabic word processing. Overall, despite the fact that Arabic has some unique linguistic features that challenge and ultimately enrich current reading models, the existing functional neuroimaging literature falls short of offering a reliable evidence about brain networks of Arabic reading. We conclude by highlighting the need for more systematic studies of the linguistic features of Arabic to build theoretical and neuroanatomical models that are concurrently specific and general.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohamed L Seghier
- Department of Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
- Healthcare Engineering Innovation Center (HEIC), Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
| | - Sami Boudelaa
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE.
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Abu Rabia S, Darawshe E. Evaluation of the multiple-deficit hypothesis among dyslexic Arabic-speaking children. DYSLEXIA (CHICHESTER, ENGLAND) 2024; 30:e1759. [PMID: 38433579 DOI: 10.1002/dys.1759] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2022] [Revised: 12/10/2023] [Accepted: 12/14/2023] [Indexed: 03/05/2024]
Abstract
This study examined the multiple-deficit hypothesis among Arabic-speaking elementary school students. A total of 90 students, divided into three main groups based on their performance on an Arabic word-reading task: dyslexic (n = 30), regular age-matched (n = 30), and 3rd-grade regular students, who were matched to the dyslexic group in regard to their reading proficiency level (n = 30). Participants underwent a nine-domain Arabic reading experiment that measured accuracy and fluency to evaluate general reading proficiency. The performance of Arabic dyslexic students was significantly worse than age-matched controls, but similar to young matched controls based on the reading level of each cognitive task. Moreover, dyslexic students showed deficits in three or more cognitive functions, depending on severity. This study adds to the limited empirical research on the double-deficit hypothesis and its extension to the multiple-domain model among young Arabic students.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Esraa Darawshe
- Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
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5
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Wei X, Adamson H, Schwendemann M, Goucha T, Friederici AD, Anwander A. Native language differences in the structural connectome of the human brain. Neuroimage 2023; 270:119955. [PMID: 36805092 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.119955] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2022] [Revised: 02/13/2023] [Accepted: 02/17/2023] [Indexed: 02/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Is the neuroanatomy of the language structural connectome modulated by the life-long experience of speaking a specific language? The current study compared the brain white matter connections of the language and speech production network in a large cohort of 94 native speakers of two very different languages: an Indo-European morphosyntactically complex language (German) and a Semitic root-based language (Arabic). Using high-resolution diffusion-weighted MRI and tractography-based network statistics of the language connectome, we demonstrated that German native speakers exhibited stronger connectivity in an intra-hemispheric frontal to parietal/temporal dorsal language network, known to be associated with complex syntax processing. In comparison, Arabic native speakers showed stronger connectivity in the connections between semantic language regions, including the left temporo-parietal network, and stronger inter-hemispheric connections via the posterior corpus callosum connecting bilateral superior temporal and inferior parietal regions. The current study suggests that the structural language connectome develops and is modulated by environmental factors such as the characteristic processing demands of the native language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xuehu Wei
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, Department of Neuropsychology, Leipzig, Germany.
| | - Helyne Adamson
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, Department of Neuropsychology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Matthias Schwendemann
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, Department of Neuropsychology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Tomás Goucha
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, Department of Neuropsychology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Angela D Friederici
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, Department of Neuropsychology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Alfred Anwander
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, Department of Neuropsychology, Leipzig, Germany
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Hermena EW, Juma EJ, AlJassmi M. Parafoveal processing of orthographic, morphological, and semantic information during reading Arabic: A boundary paradigm investigation. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0254745. [PMID: 34339439 PMCID: PMC8328344 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254745] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2021] [Accepted: 07/05/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Evidence shows that skilled readers extract information about upcoming words in the parafovea. Using the boundary paradigm, we investigated native Arabic readers' processing of orthographic, morphological, and semantic information available parafoveally. Target words were embedded in frame sentences, and prior to readers fixating them, one of the following previews were made available: (a) Identity preview; (b) Preview that shared the pattern morpheme with the target; (c) Preview that shared the root morpheme with the target; (d) Preview that was a synonym with the target word; (e) Preview with two of the root letters were transposed thus creating a new root, while preserving all letter identities of the target; (f) Preview with two of the root letters were transposed thus creating a pronounceable pseudo root, while also preserving all letter identities of the target; and (g) Previews that was unrelated to the target word and shared no information with it. The results showed that identity, root-preserving, and synonymous preview conditions yielded preview benefit. On the other hand, no benefit was obtained from the pattern-preserving previews, and significant disruption to processing was obtained from the previews that contained transposed root letters, particularly when this letter transposition created a new real root. The results thus reflect Arabic readers' dependance on morphological and semantic information, and suggest that these levels of representation are accessed as early as orthographic information. Implications for theory- and model-building, and the need to accommodate early morphological and semantic processing activities in more comprehensive models are further discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ehab W. Hermena
- Department of Psychology, Cognition and Neuroscience Research Laboratory, College of Natural and Health Sciences, Zayed University, Dubai, UAE
- * E-mail:
| | - Eida J. Juma
- Department of Psychology, Cognition and Neuroscience Research Laboratory, College of Natural and Health Sciences, Zayed University, Dubai, UAE
| | - Maryam AlJassmi
- Department of Psychology, Cognition and Neuroscience Research Laboratory, College of Natural and Health Sciences, Zayed University, Dubai, UAE
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Rakhlin NV, Li N, Aljughaiman A, Grigorenko EL. Narrative Language Markers of Arabic Language Development and Impairment. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2020; 63:3472-3487. [PMID: 32916078 DOI: 10.1044/2020_jslhr-20-00082] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Purpose We examined indices of narrative microstructure as metrics of language development and impairment in Arabic-speaking children. We examined their age sensitivity, correlations with standardized measures, and ability to differentiate children with average language and language impairment. Method We collected story narratives from 177 children (54.2% boys) between 3.08 and 10.92 years old (M = 6.25, SD = 1.67) divided into six age bands. Each child also received standardized measures of spoken language (Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary, Sentence Imitation, and Pseudoword Repetition). Several narrative indices of microstructure were examined in each age band. Children were divided into (suspected) developmental language disorder and typical language groups using the standardized test scores and compared on the narrative indicators. Sensitivity and specificity of the narrative indicators that showed group differences were calculated. Results The measures that showed age sensitivity included subject omission error rate, number of object clitics, correct use of subject-verb agreement, and mean length of utterance in words. The developmental language disorder group scored higher on subject omission errors (Cohen's d = 0.55) and lower on correct use of subject-verb agreement (Cohen's d = 0.48) than the typical language group. The threshold for impaired performance with the highest combination of specificity and sensitivity was 35th percentile. Conclusions Several indices of narrative microstructure appear to be valid metrics for documenting language development in children acquiring Gulf Arabic. Subject omission errors and correct use of subject-verb agreement differentiate children with typical and atypical levels of language development.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Nan Li
- University of Houston, TX
| | | | - Elena L Grigorenko
- University of Houston, TX
- Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
- Saint Petersburg University, Russia
- Moscow State University for Psychology and Education, Russia
- Yale University, New Haven, CT
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8
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Rakhlin NV, Aljughaiman A, Grigorenko EL. Assessing language development in Arabic: The Arabic language: Evaluation of function (ALEF). APPLIED NEUROPSYCHOLOGY-CHILD 2019; 10:37-52. [PMID: 31076015 DOI: 10.1080/21622965.2019.1596113] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
Arabic is characterized by extensive dialectal variation, diglossia, and substantial morphological complexity. Arabic lacks comprehensive diagnostic tools that would allow for a systematic evaluation of its development, critical for the early identification of language difficulties in the spoken and written domains. To address this gap, we have developed an assessment battery called Arabic Language: Evaluation of Function (ALEF), aimed at children aged 3 to 11 years. ALEF consists of 17 subtests indexing different language domains, modalities, and associated skills and representational systems. We administered the ALEF battery to native Gulf Arabic-speaking children (n = 467; ages 2.5 to 10.92; 55% boys; 20 children in each 6-month age band) in Saudi Arabia in two data collection waves. Analyses examining the psychometric properties of the instrument indicated that after the removal of misfitting items, the ALEF subtests had reliability coefficients in the range from 0.78 to 0.98, and resulting subtest scores displayed a consistent profile of positive intercorrelations and age effects. Taken together, the results indicate that the ALEF battery has good psychometric properties, and can be used for the purpose of evaluating early language development in Gulf Arabic speaking children, pending further refinement of the test structure, examination of gender-related differential item functioning, and norming.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalia V Rakhlin
- Linguistics Program, Department of English, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA
| | - Abdullah Aljughaiman
- Department of Special Education, King Faisal University, Hofuf, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
| | - Elena L Grigorenko
- Department of Molecular and Human Genetics and Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA.,Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.,Child Study Center and Haskins Laboratories, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.,Research Office, Moscow State University for Psychology and Education, Moscow, Russian Federation
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9
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Kastner I, Pylkkänen L, Marantz A. The Form of Morphemes: MEG Evidence From Masked Priming of Two Hebrew Templates. Front Psychol 2018; 9:2163. [PMID: 30483184 PMCID: PMC6240614 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02163] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2018] [Accepted: 10/22/2018] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Studies of lexical access have benefited from comparisons between languages like English, which shows concatenative morphology, and Semitic languages showing non-concatenative morphology of roots and patterns. Morphological decomposition in Semitic has previously been probed using masked priming, originally developed to investigate concatenative morphology. However, studies conducted on Semitic languages have often targeted Semitic-specific questions, such as whether the root and the verbal template prime lexical access. The overall consequence of these studies for our understanding of lexical access remains unclear. In two experiments on Hebrew using MEG, we demonstrate that a verbal form which is orthographically and phonologically indistinguishable from non-verbal forms is primed by other verbs in the same template but not by similar nouns and adjectives. These results suggest that masked priming taps into more than just visual forms but reflects morphological content, even if this content is abstract, showing no distinct orthographic or phonological marking.
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Affiliation(s)
- Itamar Kastner
- Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Language, Literature and Humanities, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- Department of Linguistics, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- *Correspondence: Itamar Kastner,
| | - Liina Pylkkänen
- Department of Linguistics, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- NYUAD Institute, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
| | - Alec Marantz
- Department of Linguistics, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- NYUAD Institute, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
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Momenian M, Nilipour R, Samar RG, Cappa SF, Golestani N. Morpho-syntactic complexity modulates brain activation in Persian-English bilinguals: An fMRI study. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2018; 185:9-18. [PMID: 29990719 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2018.07.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2017] [Revised: 06/30/2018] [Accepted: 07/04/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
The Persian language can be considered to have a relatively more complex and combinatorial morpho-syntax than languages like Chinese and English. For example, the Persian verbal system is largely constituted of light verb constructions, in which light verbs are combined with specific items coming from other grammatical classes to generate entirely new verbal entities. This study was designed to examine the mediating effect of language-inherent properties related to morpho-syntax on activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), a brain area involved in morpho-syntactic processing. To this end, 20 late Persian-English bilinguals were required to covertly generate verbs and nouns from object and action pictures, within a cued grammatical context. Consistent with predictions, the results of an ROI analysis revealed an interaction between task and language in BA 44 of the LIFG and its right homologue, with greater activation of this region during the production of Persian compared to English verbs. In contrast, there was greater activation of the BA 44 during the production of English compared to Persian nouns, consistent with the more effortful processing of their less proficient second language (English). The findings suggest that language-specific properties such as morpho-syntactic complexity can modulate the recruitment of Broca's area, over and above the more well-documented effects of language proficiency.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammad Momenian
- Laboratory for Communication Science, Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Department of Applied Linguistics, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
| | - Reza Nilipour
- Department of Speech Therapy, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Reza Ghafar Samar
- Department of Applied Linguistics, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
| | - Stefano F Cappa
- Institute for Advanced Studies (IUSS), Pavia, Italy; IRCCS S. Giovanni di Dio, Brescia, Italy
| | - Narly Golestani
- Brain and Language Lab, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
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11
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Bridgers FF, Kacinik N. How Linearity and Structural Complexity Interact and Affect the Recognition of Italian Derived Words. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2017; 46:175-200. [PMID: 27086299 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-016-9427-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
The majority of words in most languages consist of derived poly-morphemic words but a cross-linguistic review of the literature (Amenta and Crepaldi in Front Psychol 3:232-243, 2012) shows a contradictory picture with respect to how such words are represented and processed. The current study examined the effects of linearity and structural complexity on the processing of Italian derived words. Participants performed a lexical decision task on three types of prefixed and suffixed words and nonwords differing in the complexity of their internal structure. The processing of these words was indeed found to vary according to the nature of the affixes, the order in which they appear, and the type of information the affix encodes. The results thus indicate that derived words are not a uniform class and the best account of these findings appears to be a constraint-based or probabilistic multi-route processing model (e.g., Kuperman et al. in Lang Cogn Process 23:1089-1132, 2008; J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 35:876-895, 2009; J Mem Lang 62:83-97, 2010).
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Affiliation(s)
- Franca Ferrari Bridgers
- Department of Speech and Theatre Arts, Queensborough Community College, CUNY, Queens, New York, NY, USA.
| | - Natalie Kacinik
- Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Brooklyn, New York, NY, USA
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Fu M, Wang L, Zhang M, Yang Y, Sun X. A mismatch negativity study in Mandarin-speaking children with sensorineural hearing loss. Int J Pediatr Otorhinolaryngol 2016; 91:128-140. [PMID: 27863627 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijporl.2016.10.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2016] [Revised: 10/16/2016] [Accepted: 10/21/2016] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE a) To examine the effects of sensorineural hearing loss on the discriminability of linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli at the cortical level, and b) to examine whether the cortical responses differ based on the chronological age at intervention, the degree of hearing loss, or the acoustic stimulation mode in children with severe and profound hearing loss. METHODS Mismatch negativity (MMN) responses were collected from 43 children with severe and profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, and 20 children with normal hearing (age: 3-6 years). In the non-verbal stimulation condition, pure tones with frequencies of 1 kHz and 1.1 kHz were used as the standard and the deviant respectively. In the verbal stimulation condition, the Chinese mandarin tokens/ba2/and/ba4/were used as the standard and the deviant respectively. Latency and amplitude of the MMN responses were collected and analyzed. RESULTS Overall, children with hearing loss showed longer latencies and lower amplitudes of the MMN responses to both non-verbal and verbal stimulations. The latency of the verbal/ba2/-/ba4/pair was longer than that of the nonverbal 1 kHz-1.1 kHz pair in both groups of children. CONCLUSIONS Children with hearing loss, especially those who received intervention after 2 years of age, showed substantial weakness in the neural responses to lexical tones and pure tones. Thus, the chronological age when the children receive hearing intervention may have an impact on the effectiveness of discriminating between verbal and non-verbal signals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingfu Fu
- Department of Orthopaedics, Yantaishan Hospital, Yantai, Shandong 264000, China
| | - Liyan Wang
- Department of Auditory Center, China Rehabilitation Research Center for Deaf Children, Beijing 100029, China
| | - Mengchao Zhang
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, United States
| | - Ying Yang
- Department of Special Education, Binzhou Medical University, Yantai, Shandong 264003, China.
| | - Xibin Sun
- Department of Auditory Center, China Rehabilitation Research Center for Deaf Children, Beijing 100029, China.
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13
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Roll M, Söderström P, Mannfolk P, Shtyrov Y, Johansson M, van Westen D, Horne M. Word tones cueing morphosyntactic structure: Neuroanatomical substrates and activation time-course assessed by EEG and fMRI. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2015; 150:14-21. [PMID: 26291769 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2015.07.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2015] [Revised: 06/24/2015] [Accepted: 07/18/2015] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
Previous studies distinguish between right hemisphere-dominant processing of prosodic/tonal information and left-hemispheric modulation of grammatical information as well as lexical tones. Swedish word accents offer a prime testing ground to better understand this division. Although similar to lexical tones, word accents are determined by words' morphosyntactic structure, which enables listeners to use the tone at the beginning of a word to predict its grammatical ending. We recorded electrophysiological and hemodynamic brain responses to words where stem tones matched or mismatched inflectional suffixes. Tones produced brain potential effects after 136 ms, correlating with subject variability in average BOLD in left primary auditory cortex, superior temporal gyrus, and inferior frontal gyrus. Invalidly cued suffixes activated the left inferior parietal lobe, arguably reflecting increased processing cost of their meaning. Thus, interaction of word accent tones with grammatical morphology yielded a rapid neural response correlating in subject variability with activations in predominantly left-hemispheric brain areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mikael Roll
- Department of Linguistics and Phonetics, Lund University, Sweden.
| | - Pelle Söderström
- Department of Linguistics and Phonetics, Lund University, Sweden
| | - Peter Mannfolk
- Department of Medical Radiation Physics, Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Sweden
| | - Yury Shtyrov
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Institute for Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Denmark
| | | | - Danielle van Westen
- Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Sweden
| | - Merle Horne
- Department of Linguistics and Phonetics, Lund University, Sweden
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14
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Boudelaa S, Marslen-Wilson WD. Structure, form, and meaning in the mental lexicon: evidence from Arabic. LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE 2015; 30:955-992. [PMID: 26682237 PMCID: PMC4673575 DOI: 10.1080/23273798.2015.1048258] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2015] [Accepted: 04/22/2015] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Does the organization of the mental lexicon reflect the combination of abstract underlying morphemic units or the concatenation of word-level phonological units? We address these fundamental issues in Arabic, a Semitic language where every surface form is potentially analyzable into abstract morphemic units - the word pattern and the root - and where this view contrasts with stem-based approaches, chiefly driven by linguistic considerations, in which neither roots nor word patterns play independent roles in word formation and lexical representation. Five cross-modal priming experiments examine the processing of morphologically complex forms in the three major subdivisions of the Arabic lexicon - deverbal nouns, verbs, and primitive nouns. The results demonstrate that root and word pattern morphemes function as abstract cognitive entities, operating independently of semantic factors and dissociable from possible phonological confounds, while stem-based approaches consistently fail to accommodate the basic psycholinguistic properties of the Arabic mental lexicon.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sami Boudelaa
- Department of Linguistics, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - William D. Marslen-Wilson
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK
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15
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Tucker MA, Idrissi A, Almeida D. Representing number in the real-time processing of agreement: self-paced reading evidence from Arabic. Front Psychol 2015; 6:347. [PMID: 25914651 PMCID: PMC4390991 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00347] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/03/2014] [Accepted: 03/11/2015] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
In the processing of subject-verb agreement, non-subject plural nouns following a singular subject sometimes “attract” the agreement with the verb, despite not being grammatically licensed to do so. This phenomenon generates agreement errors in production and an increased tendency to fail to notice such errors in comprehension, thereby providing a window into the representation of grammatical number in working memory during sentence processing. Research in this topic, however, is primarily done in related languages with similar agreement systems. In order to increase the cross-linguistic coverage of the processing of agreement, we conducted a self-paced reading study in Modern Standard Arabic. We report robust agreement attraction errors in relative clauses, a configuration not particularly conducive to the generation of such errors for all possible lexicalizations. In particular, we examined the speed with which readers retrieve a subject controller for both grammatical and ungrammatical agreeing verbs in sentences where verbs are preceded by two NPs, one of which is a local non-subject NP that can act as a distractor for the successful resolution of subject-verb agreement. Our results suggest that the frequency of errors is modulated by the kind of plural formation strategy used on the attractor noun: nouns which form plurals by suffixation condition high rates of attraction, whereas nouns which form their plurals by internal vowel change (ablaut) generate lower rates of errors and reading-time attraction effects of smaller magnitudes. Furthermore, we show some evidence that these agreement attraction effects are mostly contained in the right tail of reaction time distributions. We also present modeling data in the ACT-R framework which supports a view of these ablauting patterns wherein they are differentially specified for number and evaluate the consequences of possible representations for theories of grammar and parsing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew A Tucker
- Language, Mind, and Brain Laboratory, Science Division, Department of Psychology, New York University Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi, UAE
| | - Ali Idrissi
- Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Qatar University Doha, Qatar
| | - Diogo Almeida
- Language, Mind, and Brain Laboratory, Science Division, Department of Psychology, New York University Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi, UAE
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16
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Kireev M, Slioussar N, Korotkov AD, Chernigovskaya TV, Medvedev SV. Changes in functional connectivity within the fronto-temporal brain network induced by regular and irregular Russian verb production. Front Hum Neurosci 2015; 9:36. [PMID: 25741262 PMCID: PMC4332281 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2014] [Accepted: 01/14/2015] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Functional connectivity between brain areas involved in the processing of complex language forms remains largely unexplored. Contributing to the debate about neural mechanisms underlying regular and irregular inflectional morphology processing in the mental lexicon, we conducted an fMRI experiment in which participants generated forms from different types of Russian verbs and nouns as well as from nonce stimuli. The data were subjected to a whole brain voxel-wise analysis of context dependent changes in functional connectivity [the so-called psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis]. Unlike previously reported subtractive results that reveal functional segregation between brain areas, PPI provides complementary information showing how these areas are functionally integrated in a particular task. To date, PPI evidence on inflectional morphology has been scarce and only available for inflectionally impoverished English verbs in a same-different judgment task. Using PPI here in conjunction with a production task in an inflectionally rich language, we found that functional connectivity between the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and bilateral superior temporal gyri (STG) was significantly greater for regular real verbs than for irregular ones. Furthermore, we observed a significant positive covariance between the number of mistakes in irregular real verb trials and the increase in functional connectivity between the LIFG and the right anterior cingulate cortex in these trails, as compared to regular ones. Our results therefore allow for dissociation between regularity and processing difficulty effects. These results, on the one hand, shed new light on the functional interplay within the LIFG-bilateral STG language-related network and, on the other hand, call for partial reconsideration of some of the previous findings while stressing the role of functional temporo-frontal connectivity in complex morphological processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maxim Kireev
- N.P. Bechtereva Institute of the Human Brain, Russian Academy of Sciences St. Petersburg, Russia ; Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University St. Petersburg, Russia
| | - Natalia Slioussar
- Faculty of Philology, Higher School of Economics Moscow, Russia ; Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University St. Petersburg, Russia
| | - Alexander D Korotkov
- N.P. Bechtereva Institute of the Human Brain, Russian Academy of Sciences St. Petersburg, Russia ; Radiological Center of Tyumen Regional Oncology Center Tyumen, Russia
| | - Tatiana V Chernigovskaya
- N.P. Bechtereva Institute of the Human Brain, Russian Academy of Sciences St. Petersburg, Russia ; Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University St. Petersburg, Russia
| | - Svyatoslav V Medvedev
- N.P. Bechtereva Institute of the Human Brain, Russian Academy of Sciences St. Petersburg, Russia
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17
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Boudelaa S. The differential time course for consonant and vowel processing in Arabic: implications for language learning and rehabilitation. Front Psychol 2015; 5:1557. [PMID: 25657626 PMCID: PMC4302791 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01557] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/18/2014] [Accepted: 12/15/2014] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Educators and therapists in the Arab world have not been able to benefit from the recent integration of basic behavioral science with neuroscience. This is due to the paucity of basic research on Arabic. The present study is a step toward establishing the necessary structure for the emergence of neuro-rehabilitory and educational practices. It focuses on the recent claim that consonants and vowels have distinct representations, carry different kinds of information, and engage different processing mechanisms. This proposal has received support from various research fields, however it suprisingly stops short of making any claims about the time course of consonant and vowel processing in speech. This study specifically asks if consonants and vowels are processed differentially over time, and whether these time courses vary depending on the kind of information they are associated with. It does so in the context of a Semitic language, Arabic, where consonants typically convey semantic meaning in the form of tri-consonantal roots, and vowels carry phonological and morpho-syntactic information in the form of word patterns. Two cross-modal priming experiments evaluated priming by fragments of consonants that belong to the root, and fragments of vowels belonging to the word pattern. Consonant fragments were effective primes while vowel fragments were not. This demonstrates the existence of a differential processing time course for consonants and vowels in the auditory domain, reflecting in part the different linguistic functions they are associated with, and argues for the importance of assigning distinct representational and processing properties to these elements. At broader theoretical and practical levels, the present results provide a significant building block for the emergence of neuro-rehabilitory and neuro-educational traditions for Arabic.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sami Boudelaa
- Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Humanity and Social Sciences, United Arab Emirates University Al Ain, United Arab Emirates ; Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge Cambridge, UK
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18
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Mountaj N, El Yagoubi R, Himmi M, Lakhdar Ghazal F, Besson M, Boudelaa S. Vowelling and semantic priming effects in Arabic. Int J Psychophysiol 2014; 95:46-55. [PMID: 25528401 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.12.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2014] [Revised: 12/09/2014] [Accepted: 12/11/2014] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
In the present experiment we used a semantic judgment task with Arabic words to determine whether semantic priming effects are found in the Arabic language. Moreover, we took advantage of the specificity of the Arabic orthographic system, which is characterized by a shallow (i.e., vowelled words) and a deep orthography (i.e., unvowelled words), to examine the relationship between orthographic and semantic processing. Results showed faster Reaction Times (RTs) for semantically related than unrelated words with no difference between vowelled and unvowelled words. By contrast, Event Related Potentials (ERPs) revealed larger N1 and N2 components to vowelled words than unvowelled words suggesting that visual-orthographic complexity taxes the early word processing stages. Moreover, semantically unrelated Arabic words elicited larger N400 components than related words thereby demonstrating N400 effects in Arabic. Finally, the Arabic N400 effect was not influenced by orthographic depth. The implications of these results for understanding the processing of orthographic, semantic, and morphological structures in Modern Standard Arabic are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nadia Mountaj
- Laboratoire d'Informatique Mathématique Intelligence Artificielle et Reconnaissance des Formes (LIMIARF), Université Mohammed V - Agdal, Faculté des Sciences Rabat, Maroc.
| | - Radouane El Yagoubi
- Laboratoire CLLE-LTC (CNRS, UMR 5263), Université de Toulouse 2, Toulouse, France
| | - Majid Himmi
- Laboratoire d'Informatique Mathématique Intelligence Artificielle et Reconnaissance des Formes (LIMIARF), Université Mohammed V - Agdal, Faculté des Sciences Rabat, Maroc
| | | | - Mireille Besson
- Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives, CNRS - Aix-Marseille Université, Pôle 3C, France; Cuban Neuroscience Center, La Habana, Cuba
| | - Sami Boudelaa
- Department of Linguistics, United Arab Emirates University, United Arab Emirates; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK
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19
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Is the Arabic Mental Lexicon Morpheme-Based or Stem-Based? Implications for Spoken and Written Word Recognition. LITERACY STUDIES 2014. [DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-8545-7_2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/04/2023]
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20
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Boudelaa S, Marslen-Wilson WD. Morphological structure in the Arabic mental lexicon: Parallels between standard and dialectal Arabic. LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE PROCESSES 2013; 28:1453-1473. [PMID: 24347753 PMCID: PMC3856529 DOI: 10.1080/01690965.2012.719629] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2010] [Revised: 07/31/2012] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
The Arabic language is acquired by its native speakers both as a regional spoken Arabic dialect, acquired in early childhood as a first language, and as the more formal variety known as Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), typically acquired later in childhood. These varieties of Arabic show a range of linguistic similarities and differences. Since previous psycholinguistic research in Arabic has primarily used MSA, it remains to be established whether the same cognitive properties hold for the dialects. Here we focus on the morphological level, and ask whether roots and word patterns play similar or different roles in MSA and in the regional dialect known as Southern Tunisian Arabic (STA). In two intra-modal auditory-auditory priming experiments, we found similar results with strong priming effects for roots and patterns in both varieties. Despite differences in the timing and nature of the acquisition of MSA and STA, root and word pattern priming was clearly distinguishable from form-based and semantic-based priming in both varieties. The implication of these results for theories of Arabic diglossia and theories of morphological processing are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sami Boudelaa
- Department of Linguistics, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - William D. Marslen-Wilson
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Medical Research Council Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK
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Whiting CM, Marslen-Wilson WD, Shtyrov Y. Neural dynamics of inflectional and derivational processing in spoken word comprehension: laterality and automaticity. Front Hum Neurosci 2013; 7:759. [PMID: 24302902 PMCID: PMC3831605 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00759] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2013] [Accepted: 10/22/2013] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Rapid and automatic processing of grammatical complexity is argued to take place during speech comprehension, engaging a left-lateralized fronto-temporal language network. Here we address how neural activity in these regions is modulated by the grammatical properties of spoken words. We used combined magneto- and electroencephalography to delineate the spatiotemporal patterns of activity that support the recognition of morphologically complex words in English with inflectional (-s) and derivational (-er) affixes (e.g., bakes, baker). The mismatch negativity, an index of linguistic memory traces elicited in a passive listening paradigm, was used to examine the neural dynamics elicited by morphologically complex words. Results revealed an initial peak 130–180 ms after the deviation point with a major source in left superior temporal cortex. The localization of this early activation showed a sensitivity to two grammatical properties of the stimuli: (1) the presence of morphological complexity, with affixed words showing increased left-laterality compared to non-affixed words; and (2) the grammatical category, with affixed verbs showing greater left-lateralization in inferior frontal gyrus compared to affixed nouns (bakes vs. beaks). This automatic brain response was additionally sensitive to semantic coherence (the meaning of the stem vs. the meaning of the whole form) in left middle temporal cortex. These results demonstrate that the spatiotemporal pattern of neural activity in spoken word processing is modulated by the presence of morphological structure, predominantly engaging the left-hemisphere’s fronto-temporal language network, and does not require focused attention on the linguistic input.
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Affiliation(s)
- Caroline M Whiting
- Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge Cambridge, UK ; MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit Cambridge, UK
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22
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Leminen A, Leminen M, Kujala T, Shtyrov Y. Neural dynamics of inflectional and derivational morphology processing in the human brain. Cortex 2013; 49:2758-71. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2013.08.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2012] [Revised: 03/18/2013] [Accepted: 08/19/2013] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
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Leminen A, Lehtonen M, Leminen M, Nevalainen P, Mäkelä JP, Kujala T. The role of attention in processing morphologically complex spoken words: an EEG/MEG study. Front Hum Neurosci 2013; 6:353. [PMID: 23316156 PMCID: PMC3540952 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00353] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2012] [Accepted: 12/20/2012] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
This study determined to what extent morphological processing of spoken inflected and derived words is attention-independent. To answer these questions EEG and MEG responses were recorded from healthy participants while they were presented with spoken Finnish inflected, derived, and monomorphemic words. In the non-attended task, the participants were instructed to ignore the incoming auditory stimuli and concentrate on the silent cartoon. In the attended task, previously reported by Leminen et al. (2011), the participants were to judge the acceptability of each stimulus. Importantly, EEG and MEG responses were time-locked to the onset of critical information [suffix onset for the complex words and uniqueness point (UP) for the monomorphemic words]. Early after the critical point, word type did not interact with task: in both attended and non-attended tasks, the event-related potentials (ERPs) showed larger negativity to derived than inflected or monomorphemic words ~100 ms after the critical point. MEG source waveforms showed a similar pattern. Later than 100 ms after the critical point, there were no differences between word types in the non-attended task either in the ERP or source modeling data. However, in the attended task inflected words elicited larger responses than other words ~200 ms after the critical point. The results suggest different brain representations for derived and inflected words. The early activation after the critical point was elicited both in the non-attended and attended tasks. As this stage of word recognition was not modulated by attention, it can be concluded to reflect an automatic mapping of incoming acoustic information onto stored representations. In contrast, the later differences between word types in the attended task were not observed in the non-attended task. This indicates that later compositional processes at the (morpho)syntactic-semantic level require focused attention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alina Leminen
- Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Cognitive Science, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland
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Alexandrov AA, Boricheva DO, Pulvermüller F, Shtyrov Y. Strength of word-specific neural memory traces assessed electrophysiologically. PLoS One 2011; 6:e22999. [PMID: 21853063 PMCID: PMC3154264 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0022999] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/23/2011] [Accepted: 07/05/2011] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Memory traces for words are frequently conceptualized neurobiologically as networks of neurons interconnected via reciprocal links developed through associative learning in the process of language acquisition. Neurophysiological reflection of activation of such memory traces has been reported using the mismatch negativity brain potential (MMN), which demonstrates an enhanced response to meaningful words over meaningless items. This enhancement is believed to be generated by the activation of strongly intraconnected long-term memory circuits for words that can be automatically triggered by spoken linguistic input and that are absent for unfamiliar phonological stimuli. This conceptual framework critically predicts different amounts of activation depending on the strength of the word's lexical representation in the brain. The frequent use of words should lead to more strongly connected representations, whereas less frequent items would be associated with more weakly linked circuits. A word with higher frequency of occurrence in the subject's language should therefore lead to a more pronounced lexical MMN response than its low-frequency counterpart. We tested this prediction by comparing the event-related potentials elicited by low- and high-frequency words in a passive oddball paradigm; physical stimulus contrasts were kept identical. We found that, consistent with our prediction, presenting the high-frequency stimulus led to a significantly more pronounced MMN response relative to the low-frequency one, a finding that is highly similar to previously reported MMN enhancement to words over meaningless pseudowords. Furthermore, activation elicited by the higher-frequency word peaked earlier relative to low-frequency one, suggesting more rapid access to frequently used lexical entries. These results lend further support to the above view on word memory traces as strongly connected assemblies of neurons. The speed and magnitude of their activation appears to be linked to the strength of internal connections in a memory circuit, which is in turn determined by the everyday use of language elements.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Friedemann Pulvermüller
- Medical Research Council (MRC), Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Yury Shtyrov
- Medical Research Council (MRC), Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, United Kingdom
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Boudelaa S, Marslen-Wilson WD. Productivity and priming: Morphemic decomposition in Arabic. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2011. [DOI: 10.1080/01690965.2010.521022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
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Event-related potentials reflecting the frequency of unattended spoken words: A neuronal index of connection strength in lexical memory circuits? Neuroimage 2011; 55:658-68. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.12.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 43] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2010] [Revised: 11/30/2010] [Accepted: 12/02/2010] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
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Abstract
In this article, we present a new lexical database for Modern Standard Arabic: Aralex. Based on a contemporary text corpus of 40 million words, Aralex provides information about (1) the token frequencies of roots and word patterns, (2) the type frequency, or family size, of roots and word patterns, and (3) the frequency of bigrams, trigrams in orthographic forms, roots, and word patterns. Aralex will be a useful tool for studying the cognitive processing of Arabic through the selection of stimuli on the basis of precise frequency counts. Researchers can use it as a source of information on natural language processing, and it may serve an educational purpose by providing basic vocabulary lists. Aralex is distributed under a GNU-like license, allowing people to interrogate it freely online or to download it from www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk:8081/aralex.online/login.jsp.
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