Gender Congruency Effects in Spanish: Behavioral Evidence from Noun Phrase Production

Grammatical gender as a lexico-syntactic feature has been well explored, and the gender congruency effect has been observed in many languages (e.g., Dutch, German, Croatian, Czech, etc.). Yet, so far, this effect has not been found in Romance languages such as Italian, French, and Spanish. It has been argued that the absence of the effect in Romance languages is due the fact that the gender-marking definite article is not exclusively dependent on the grammatical gender of the head noun, but also on its onset phonology (e.g., lo zucchero is 'the sugar' in Italian, not il zucchero, il being the default masculine determiner in Italian). For Spanish, this argument has also been made because feminine words starting with a stressed /a/ take the masculine article (e.g., el água is 'the water', not la água). However, the number of words belonging to that set is rather small in Spanish, and it may be questionable whether or not this feature can be taken as an argument for the absence of a gender congruency effect in Spanish. In this study, we investigated the gender congruency effect in native Spanish noun phrase production. We measured 30 native Spanish speakers' naming latencies in four conditions via the picture-word interference paradigm by manipulating gender congruency (i.e., gender-congruent vs. gender-incongruent) and semantic relatedness (i.e., semantically related vs. semantically unrelated). The results revealed significantly longer naming latencies in gender-incongruent and semantically related conditions compared to gender-congruent and semantically unrelated conditions. This result suggests that grammatical gender as a lexico-syntactic feature in Spanish is used to competitively select determiners in native Spanish speakers' noun phrases. Our findings provide an important behavioral piece of evidence for the gender congruency effect in Romance languages.

Connectivity Profile of Middle Inferior Parietal Cortex Confirms the Hypothesis About Modulating Cortical Areas

According to the correlated transmitter-receptor based structure of the inferior parietal cortex (IPC), this brain area is divided into three clusters, namely, the caudal, the middle and the rostral. Nevertheless, in associating different cognitive functions to the IPC, previous studies considered this part of the cortex as a whole and thus inconsistent results have been reported. Using multiband EPI, we investigated the connectivity profile of the middle IPC while forty-five participants performed a task requiring cognitive control. The middle IPC demonstrated functional associations which do not have similarities to a contributing part in the frontoparietal network, in processing cognitive control. At the same time, this cortical area showed negative functional connectivity with both the precuneus cortex, which is resting- state related, and brain areas related to general cognitive functions. That is, the functions of the middle IPC are not accommodated by the traditional categorization of different brain areas i.e. resting state-related or task-related networks and this advanced our hypothesis about modulating cortical areas. Such brain areas are characterized by their negative functional connectivity with parts of the cortex involved in task performance, proportional to the difficulty of the task; yet, their functional associations are inconsistent with the resting state-related cortical areas.

Context Matters for Tone and Intonation Processing in Mandarin

In tonal languages such as Mandarin, both lexical tone and sentence intonation are primarily signaled by F0. Their F0 encodings are sometimes in conflict and sometimes in congruency. The present study investigated how tone and intonation, with F0 encodings in conflict or in congruency, are processed and how semantic context may affect their processing. To this end, tone and intonation identification experiments were conducted in both semantically neutral and constraining contexts. Results showed that the overall performance of tone identification was better than that of intonation. Specifically, tone identification was seldom affected by intonation information irrespective of semantic contexts. However, intonation identification, particularly question intonation, was susceptible to the final lexical tone identity and affected by the semantic context. In the semantically neutral context, questions ending with a rising tone and a falling tone were equally difficult to identify. In the semantically constraining context, questions ending with a falling tone were much better identified than those ending with a rising tone. This perceptual asymmetry suggests that top-down information provided by the semantically constraining context can play a facilitating role for listeners to disentangle intonational information from tonal information, but mainly in sentences with the lexical falling tone in the final position.

Noun-phrase production as a window to language selection: An ERP study

Characterising the time course of non-native language production is critical in understanding the mechanisms behind successful communication. Yet, little is known about the modulating role of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) on the temporal unfolding of non-native production and the locus of target language selection. In this study, we explored CLI effects on non-native noun phrase production with behavioural and neural methods. We were particularly interested in the modulation of the P300 as an index for inhibitory control, and the N400 as an index for co-activation and CLI. German late learners of Spanish overtly named pictures while their EEG was monitored. Our results indicate traceable CLI effects at the behavioural and neural level in both early and late production stages. This suggests that speakers faced competition between the target and non-target language until advanced production stages. Our findings add important behavioural and neural evidence to the underpinnings of non-native production processes, in particular for late learners.

Cross-Dialectal Novel Word Learning and Borrowing

The objective of this paper was to study the cognitive processes underlying cross-dialectal novel word borrowing and loanword establishment in a Standard-Chinese-to-Shanghainese (SC-SH) auditory lexical learning and borrowing experiment. To investigate these underlying cognitive processes, SC-SH bi-dialectals were compared with SC monolectals as well as bi-dialectals of SC and other Chinese dialects (OD) to investigate the influence of short-term and long-term linguistic experience. Both comprehension and production borrowings were tested. This study found that early and proficient bi-dialectism, even if it is not directly related to the recipient dialect of lexical borrowing, has a protective effect on the ability of cross-dialectal lexical borrowing in early adulthood. Bi-dialectals tend to add separate lexical representations for incidentally encountered dialectal variants, while monolectals tend to assimilate dialectal variants to standard forms. Bi-dialectals, but not monolectals, use etymologically related morphemes between the source and recipient dialects to create nonce-borrowing compounds. Dialectal variability facilitates lexical borrowing via enriching instead of increasing the short-term lexical experience of learners. The long-term bi-dialectal experience of individuals, as well as their short-term exposure to each specific loanword, may collectively shape the route of lexical evolution of co-evolving linguistic varieties.

Cross-linguistic interference in late language learners: An ERP study

This study investigated cross-linguistic interference in German low-proficient late learners of Spanish. We examined the modulating influence of gender congruency and cognate status using a syntactic violation paradigm. Behavioural results demonstrated that participants were more sensitive to similarities at the syntactic level (gender congruency) than to phonological and orthographic overlap (cognate status). Electrophysiological data showed that they were sensitive to syntactic violations (P600 effect) already in early acquisition stages. However, P600 effect sizes were not modulated by gender congruency or cognate status. Therefore, our late learners of Spanish did not seem to be susceptible to influences from inherent noun properties when processing non-native noun phrases at the neural level. Our results contribute to the discussion about the neural correlates of grammatical gender processing and sensitivity to syntactic violations in early acquisition stages.

Classifiers in Mandarin Chinese: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence regarding their representation and processing

In Chinese, when objects are named with their quantity, a numeral classifier must be inserted between the quantifier and the noun to produce a grammatically correct quantifier + classifier + noun phrase. In this study, we adopted the picture-word interference paradigm to examine participants' naming latencies for multiple objects and their electroencephalogram in four conditions by manipulating two factors, i.e. semantic relatedness and classifier congruency. Results show that in noun phrase production, naming latencies are significantly longer in classifier-incongruent and semantically related conditions than in classifier-congruent and semantically unrelated conditions. Also, an N400-like effect was observed and found to be stronger in classifier-incongruent and semantically unrelated conditions. Together, the behavioral data and event-related potential analyses suggest that the use of classifiers as lexico-syntactic features in Mandarin Chinese takes place via a competitive selection process in noun phrase production.

(Not so) Great Expectations: Listening to Foreign-Accented Speech Reduces the Brain's Anticipatory Processes

This study examines the effect of foreign-accented speech on the predictive ability of our brain. Listeners actively anticipate upcoming linguistic information in the speech signal so as to facilitate and reduce processing load. However, it is unclear whether or not listeners also do this when they are exposed to speech from non-native speakers. In the present study, we exposed native Dutch listeners to sentences produced by native and non-native speakers while measuring their brain activity using electroencephalography. We found that listeners’ brain activity differed depending on whether they listened to native or non-native speech. However, participants’ overall performance as measured by word recall rate was unaffected. We discussed the results in relation to previous findings as well as the automaticity of anticipation.

Tonal mapping of Xi'an Mandarin and Standard Chinese

One long-neglected fact in linguistic research on Standard Chinese (SC) is that most speakers of SC also speak a local dialect, which may share phonological features with SC. Tonal information can be a determinant of the phonological similarities or differences between some Chinese dialects and SC, yet relatively little empirical research has been conducted on the tonal system of other language varieties in Chinese aside from SC. Among these dialects, Xi'an Mandarin (XM) is particularly interesting for the seemingly simple, yet intricate mapping between its lexical tones with those in SC. In this study, the tonal systems of XM and SC were compared empirically. Tones with similar contours from XM and SC were paired, and both tone production and perception experiments were carried out on bidialectal speakers of XM and SC. The two experiments together showed that there is indeed systematic mapping of tones between XM and SC. The degree of similarity of the mapped tone pair in tone perception was largely dependent on the acoustic phonetic similarity between the tones in tone production, with a phonological rule playing a role in the tone pair of low contour.

Do Persian Native Speakers Prosodically Mark Wh-in-situ Questions?

It has been shown that prosody contributes to the contrast between declarativity and interrogativity, notably in interrogative utterances lacking lexico-syntactic features of interrogativity. Accordingly, it may be proposed that prosody plays a role in marking wh-in-situ questions in which the interrogativity feature (the wh-phrase) does not move to sentence-initial position, as, for example, in Persian. This paper examines whether prosody distinguishes Persian wh-in-situ questions from declaratives in the absence of the interrogativity feature in the sentence-initial position. To answer this question, a production experiment was designed in which wh-questions and declaratives were elicited from Persian native speakers. On the basis of the results of previous studies, we hypothesize that prosodic features mark wh-in-situ questions as opposed to declaratives at both the local (pre- and post-wh part) and global level (complete sentence). The results of the current study confirm our hypothesis that prosodic correlates mark the pre-wh part as well as the complete sentence in wh-in-situ questions. The results support theoretical concepts such as the frequency code, the universal dichotomous association between relaxation and declarativity on the one hand and tension and interrogativity on the other, the relation between prosody and pragmatics, and the relation between prosody and encoding and decoding of sentence type.

Towards a neural model of infant cry perception

Previous work suggests that infant cry perception is supported by an evolutionary old neural network consisting of the auditory system, the thalamocingulate circuit, the frontoinsular system, the reward pathway and the medial prefrontal cortex. Furthermore, gender and parenthood have been proposed to modulate processing of infant cries. The present meta-analysis (N = 350) confirmed involvement of the auditory system, the thalamocingulate circuit, the dorsal anterior insula, the pre-supplementary motor area and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and the inferior frontal gyrus in infant cry perception, but not of the reward pathway. Structures related to motoric processing, possibly supporting the preparation of a parenting response, were also involved. Finally, females (more than males) and parents (more than non-parents) recruited a cortico-limbic sensorimotor integration network, offering a neural explanation for previously observed enhanced processing of infant cries in these sub-groups. Based on the results, an updated neural model of infant cry perception is presented.

A Review on Grammatical Gender Agreement in Speech Production

Grammatical gender agreement has been well addressed in language comprehension but less so in language production. The present article discusses the arguments derived from the most prominent language production models on the representation and processing of the grammatical gender of nouns in language production and then reviews recent empirical studies that provide some answers to these arguments.

Prosody perception and production by children with cochlear implants

The perception and production of emotional and linguistic (focus) prosody were compared in children with cochlear implants (CI) and normally hearing (NH) peers. Thirteen CI and thirteen hearing-age-matched school-aged NH children were tested, as baseline, on non-verbal emotion understanding, non-word repetition, and stimulus identification and naming. Main tests were verbal emotion discrimination, verbal focus position discrimination, acted emotion production, and focus production. Productions were evaluated by NH adult Dutch listeners. All scores between groups were comparable, except a lower score for the CI group for non-word repetition. Emotional prosody perception and production scores correlated weakly for CI children but were uncorrelated for NH children. In general, hearing age weakly predicted emotion production but not perception. Non-verbal emotional (but not linguistic) understanding predicted CI children's (but not controls') emotion perception and production. In conclusion, increasing time in sound might facilitate vocal emotional expression, possibly requiring independently maturing emotion perception skills.

Basic Measures of Prosody in Spontaneous Speech of Children With Early and Late Cochlear Implantation

PURPOSE

Relative to normally hearing (NH) peers, the speech of children with cochlear implants (CIs) has been found to have deviations such as a high fundamental frequency, elevated jitter and shimmer, and inadequate intonation. However, two important dimensions of prosody (temporal and spectral) have not been systematically investigated. Given that, in general, the resolution in CI hearing is best for the temporal dimension and worst for the spectral dimension, we expected this hierarchy to be reflected in the amount of CI speech's deviation from NH speech. Deviations, however, were expected to diminish with increasing device experience.

METHOD

Of 9 Dutch early- and late-implanted (division at 2 years of age) children and 12 hearing age-matched NH controls, spontaneous speech was recorded at 18, 24, and 30 months after implantation (CI) or birth (NH). Six spectral and temporal outcome measures were compared between groups, sessions, and genders.

RESULTS

On most measures, interactions of Group and/or Gender with Session were significant. For CI recipients as compared with controls, performance on temporal measures was not in general more deviant than spectral measures, although differences were found for individual measures. The late-implanted group had a tendency to be closer to the NH group than the early-implanted group. Groups converged over time.

CONCLUSIONS

Results did not support the phonetic dimension hierarchy hypothesis, suggesting that the appropriateness of the production of basic prosodic measures does not depend on auditory resolution. Rather, it seems to depend on the amount of control necessary for speech production.

Plural dominance and the production of determiner-noun phrases in French

In two experiments, we examined the functional locus of plural dominance in the French spoken word production system, where singulars and plurals share the same phonological word form. The materials included singular-dominant (singular more frequent than plural) and plural-dominant nouns (plural more frequent than singular). In Experiment 1, participants were instructed to produce determiner-noun phrases in response to singular and plural depictions of objects. In contrast to the dominance-by-number interaction that is typically observed in English, Dutch and German, the French picture-naming data revealed a main effect of number, but no effect of plural dominance. When participants were instructed to produce determiner-noun phrases in a reading aloud task (Experiment 2), where number is orthographically marked, a number-by-dominance interaction emerged. Our data suggest that plural dominance is encoded at the word form level within the context of recent theories of spoken word production.

Neural oscillatory mechanisms during novel grammar learning underlying language analytical abilities

The goal of the present study was to investigate the initial phases of novel grammar learning on a neural level, concentrating on mechanisms responsible for individual variability between learners. Two groups of participants, one with high and one with average language analytical abilities, performed an Artificial Grammar Learning (AGL) task consisting of learning and test phases. During the task, EEG signals from 32 cap-mounted electrodes were recorded and epochs corresponding to the learning phases were analysed. We investigated spectral power modulations over time, and functional connectivity patterns by means of a bivariate, frequency-specific index of phase synchronization termed Phase Locking Value (PLV). Behavioural data showed learning effects in both groups, with a steeper learning curve and higher ultimate attainment for the highly skilled learners. Moreover, we established that cortical connectivity patterns and profiles of spectral power modulations over time differentiated L2 learners with various levels of language analytical abilities. Over the course of the task, the learning process seemed to be driven by whole-brain functional connectivity between neuronal assemblies achieved by means of communication in the beta band frequency. On a shorter time-scale, increasing proficiency on the AGL task appeared to be supported by stronger local synchronisation within the right hemisphere regions. Finally, we observed that the highly skilled learners might have exerted less mental effort, or reduced attention for the task at hand once the learning was achieved, as evidenced by the higher alpha band power.

When speaker identity is unavoidable: Neural processing of speaker identity cues in natural speech

Speech sound acoustic properties vary largely across speakers and accents. When perceiving speech, adult listeners normally disregard non-linguistic variation caused by speaker or accent differences, in order to comprehend the linguistic message, e.g. to correctly identify a speech sound or a word. Here we tested whether the process of normalizing speaker and accent differences, facilitating the recognition of linguistic information, is found at the level of neural processing, and whether it is modulated by the listeners' native language. In a multi-deviant oddball paradigm, native and nonnative speakers of Dutch were exposed to naturally-produced Dutch vowels varying in speaker, sex, accent, and phoneme identity. Unexpectedly, the analysis of mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitudes elicited by each type of change shows a large degree of early perceptual sensitivity to non-linguistic cues. This finding on perception of naturally-produced stimuli contrasts with previous studies examining the perception of synthetic stimuli wherein adult listeners automatically disregard acoustic cues to speaker identity. The present finding bears relevance to speech normalization theories, suggesting that at an unattended level of processing, listeners are indeed sensitive to changes in fundamental frequency in natural speech tokens.

The perception of emotion and focus prosody with varying acoustic cues in cochlear implant simulations with varying filter slopes

This study aimed to find the optimal filter slope for cochlear implant simulations (vocoding) by testing the effect of a wide range of slopes on the discrimination of emotional and linguistic (focus) prosody, with varying availability of F0 and duration cues. Forty normally hearing participants judged if (non-)vocoded sentences were pronounced with happy or sad emotion, or with adjectival or nominal focus. Sentences were recorded as natural stimuli and manipulated to contain only emotion- or focus-relevant segmental duration or F0 information or both, and then noise-vocoded with 5, 20, 80, 120, and 160 dB/octave filter slopes. Performance increased with steeper slopes, but only up to 120 dB/octave, with bigger effects for emotion than for focus perception. For emotion, results with both cues most closely resembled results with F0, while for focus results with both cues most closely resembled those with duration, showing emotion perception relies primarily on F0, and focus perception on duration. This suggests that filter slopes affect focus perception less than emotion perception because for emotion, F0 is both more informative and more affected. The performance increase until extreme filter slope values suggests that much performance improvement in prosody perception is still to be gained for CI users.

Whole-brain functional connectivity during acquisition of novel grammar: Distinct functional networks depend on language learning abilities

In an effort to advance the understanding of brain function and organisation accompanying second language learning, we investigate the neural substrates of novel grammar learning in a group of healthy adults, consisting of participants with high and average language analytical abilities (LAA). By means of an Independent Components Analysis, a data-driven approach to functional connectivity of the brain, the fMRI data collected during a grammar-learning task were decomposed into maps representing separate cognitive processes. These included the default mode, task-positive, working memory, visual, cerebellar and emotional networks. We further tested for differences within the components, representing individual differences between the High and Average LAA learners. We found high analytical abilities to be coupled with stronger contributions to the task-positive network from areas adjacent to bilateral Broca's region, stronger connectivity within the working memory network and within the emotional network. Average LAA participants displayed stronger engagement within the task-positive network from areas adjacent to the right-hemisphere homologue of Broca's region and typical to lower level processing (visual word recognition), and increased connectivity within the default mode network. The significance of each of the identified networks for the grammar learning process is presented next to a discussion on the established markers of inter-individual learners' differences. We conclude that in terms of functional connectivity, the engagement of brain's networks during grammar acquisition is coupled with one's language learning abilities.

Online processing of tone and intonation in Mandarin: Evidence from ERPs

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the online processing of tone and intonation in Mandarin at the attentive stage. We examined the behavioral and electrophysiological responses of native Mandarin listeners to Mandarin sentences, which contrast in final tones (rising Tone2 or falling Tone4) and intonations (Question or Statement). A clear P300 effect was observed for question-statement contrast in sentences ending with Tone4, but no ERP effect was found for question-statement contrast in sentences ending with Tone2. Our results provide ERP evidence for the interaction of tone and intonation in Mandarin, confirming the findings with behavioral metalinguistic data that native Mandarin listeners can distinguish between question intonation and statement intonation when the intonation is associated with a final Tone4, but fail to do so when the intonation is associated with a final Tone2. Our study extended the understanding of online processing of tone and intonation (1) from the pre-attentive stage to the attentive stage and (2) within a larger domain (i.e. multi-word utterances) than a single word utterance.

Possible neural oscillatory mechanisms underlying learning

In response to Voelker et al. (this issue), we argue for a wide array of neural oscillatory mechanisms underlying learning and practice. While the authors propose frontal theta power as the basis for learning-induced neuroplasticity, we believe that the temporal dynamics of other frequency bands, together with their synchronization properties can offer a fuller account of the neurophysiological changes occurring in the brain during cognitive tasks.

Distinct morphological processing of recently learned compound words: An ERP study

Our vocabulary is, at least in principle, infinite. We can create new words combining existing ones in meaningful ways to form new linguistic expressions. The present study investigated the morphological processing of novel compound words in overt speech production. Native speakers of Dutch learned a series of new compounds (e.g. appelgezicht, 'apple-face') that were later used as primes in a morphological priming task. In this protocol, primes were compound words morphologically related to a target's picture name (e.g. appelgezicht was used for a picture of an apple, Dutch appel). The novel primes were compared with corresponding familiar compounds sharing a free morpheme (e.g. appelmoes, 'applesauce') and with unrelated compounds. Participants were required to read aloud words and to name pictures in a long-lag design. Behavioral and event-related potentials (ERPs) data were collected in two sessions, separated by 48h. Clear facilitation of picture naming latencies was obtained when pictures were paired with morphological related words. Notably, our results show that novel compounds have a stronger priming effect than familiar compounds in both sessions, which is expressed in a marked reduction in target naming latencies and a decrease in the N400 amplitude. These results suggest that participants focused more on the separate constituents when reading novel primes than in the case of existing compounds.

Morphological priming during language switching: an ERP study

Bilingual language control (BLC) is a much-debated issue in recent literature. Some models assume BLC is achieved by various types of inhibition of the non-target language, whereas other models do not assume any inhibitory mechanisms. In an event-related potential (ERP) study involving a long-lag morphological priming paradigm, participants were required to name pictures and read aloud words in both their L1 (Dutch) and L2 (English). Switch blocks contained intervening L1 items between L2 primes and targets, whereas non-switch blocks contained only L2 stimuli. In non-switch blocks, target picture names that were morphologically related to the primes were named faster than unrelated control items. In switch blocks, faster response latencies were recorded for morphologically related targets as well, demonstrating the existence of morphological priming in the L2. However, only in non-switch blocks, ERP data showed a reduced N400 trend, possibly suggesting that participants made use of a post-lexical checking mechanism during the switch block.

Neural correlates reveal sub-lexical orthography and phonology during reading aloud: a review

The sub-lexical conversion of graphemes-to-phonemes (GPC) during reading has been investigated extensively with behavioral measures, as well as event-related potentials (ERPs). Most research utilizes silent reading (e.g., lexical decision task) for which phonological activation is not a necessity. However, recent research employed reading aloud to capture sub-lexical GPC. The masked priming paradigm avoids strategic processing and is therefore well suitable for capturing sub-lexical processing instead of lexical effects. By employing ERPs, the on-line time course of sub-lexical GPC can be observed before the overt response. ERPs have revealed that besides phonological activation, as revealed by behavioral studies, there is also early orthographic activation. This review describes studies in one's native language, in one's second language, and in a cross-language situation. We discuss the implications the ERP results have on different (computational) models. First, the ERP results show that computational models should assume an early locus of the GPC. Second, cross-language studies reveal that the phonological representations from both languages of a bilingual become activated automatically and the phonology belonging to the context is selected rapidly. Therefore, it is important to extend the scope of computational models of reading (aloud) to multiple lexicons.

Second language phonology influences first language word naming

The Masked Onset Priming Effect (MOPE) has been reported in speakers' first languages (L1). The aims of the present study are to investigate whether second language (L2) phonology is active during L1 reading, and to disentangle the contributions of orthography and phonology in reading aloud. To this end, Dutch-English bilinguals read aloud L1 target words primed by L2 words, while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. The onset of the primes was manipulated to disentangle the contributions of orthography and phonology (i.e. O+P+: kite - KUNST, 'art'; O+P-: knee - KUNST; O-P+: crime - KUNST; O-P-: mine - KUNST). Phonological but not orthographic overlap facilitated RTs. However, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) revealed both orthographic and phonological priming starting 125 ms after target presentation. Taken together, we gained insights into the time course of cross-linguistic priming and demonstrated that L2 phonology is activated rapidly in an L1 environment.

Blunted feelings: alexithymia is associated with a diminished neural response to speech prosody

How we perceive emotional signals from our environment depends on our personality. Alexithymia, a personality trait characterized by difficulties in emotion regulation has been linked to aberrant brain activity for visual emotional processing. Whether alexithymia also affects the brain's perception of emotional speech prosody is currently unknown. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the impact of alexithymia on hemodynamic activity of three a priori regions of the prosody network: the superior temporal gyrus (STG), the inferior frontal gyrus and the amygdala. Twenty-two subjects performed an explicit task (emotional prosody categorization) and an implicit task (metrical stress evaluation) on the same prosodic stimuli. Irrespective of task, alexithymia was associated with a blunted response of the right STG and the bilateral amygdalae to angry, surprised and neutral prosody. Individuals with difficulty describing feelings deactivated the left STG and the bilateral amygdalae to a lesser extent in response to angry compared with neutral prosody, suggesting that they perceived angry prosody as relatively more salient than neutral prosody. In conclusion, alexithymia may be associated with a generally blunted neural response to speech prosody. Such restricted prosodic processing may contribute to problems in social communication associated with this personality trait.

The role of orthography and phonology in English: an ERP study on first and second language reading aloud

This study investigated the role of orthographic and phonological information in reading aloud. Dutch-English bilinguals (L2) and native English (L1) participants read aloud English words. The contribution of orthographic and phonological activation was distinguished with prime manipulation. Phonological overlap, but not orthographic overlap, facilitated the response latencies for both English L1 and L2 speakers. In contrast, event-related brain potentials also revealed orthographic priming for both groups. Altogether, the present results demonstrate that late L2 speakers exhibit a Masked Onset Priming Effect similar to that of native speakers. In addition, the ERP results revealed that orthographic information is activated earlier during reading, but is not detectable anymore at the behavioral response level when the task is reading aloud.

The Nature of Affective Priming in Music and Speech

The phenomenon of affective priming has caught scientific interest for over 30 years, yet the nature of the affective priming effect remains elusive. This study investigated the underlying mechanism of cross-modal affective priming and the influence of affective incongruence in music and speech on negativities in the N400 time-window. In Experiment 1, participants judged the valence of affective targets (affective categorization). We found that music and speech targets were evaluated faster when preceded by affectively congruent visual word primes, and vice versa. This affective priming effect was accompanied by a significantly larger N400-like effect following incongruent targets. In this experiment, both spreading of activation and response competition could underlie the affective priming effect. In Experiment 2, participants categorized the same affective targets based on nonaffective characteristics. However, as prime valence was irrelevant to the response dimension, affective priming effects could no longer be attributable to response competition. In Experiment 2, affective priming effects were observed neither at the behavioral nor electrophysiological level. The results of this study indicate that both affective music and speech prosody can prime the processing of visual words with emotional connotations, and vice versa. Affective incongruence seems to be associated with N400-like effects during evaluative categorization. The present data further suggest a role of response competition during the affective categorization of music, prosody, and words with emotional connotations.

Hearing feelings: a quantitative meta-analysis on the neuroimaging literature of emotional prosody perception

With the advent of neuroimaging considerable progress has been made in uncovering the neural network involved in the perception of emotional prosody. However, the exact neuroanatomical underpinnings of the emotional prosody perception process remain unclear. Furthermore, it is unclear what the intrahemispheric basis might be of the relative right-hemispheric specialization for emotional prosody perception that has been found previously in the lesion literature. In an attempt to shed light on these issues, quantitative meta-analyses of the neuroimaging literature were performed to investigate which brain areas are robustly associated with stimulus-driven and task-dependent perception of emotional prosody. Also, lateralization analyses were performed to investigate whether statistically reliable hemispheric specialization across studies can be found in these networks. A bilateral temporofrontal network was found to be implicated in emotional prosody perception, generally supporting previously proposed models of emotional prosody perception. Right-lateralized convergence across studies was found in (early) auditory processing areas, suggesting that the right hemispheric specialization for emotional prosody perception reported previously in the lesion literature might be driven by hemispheric specialization for non-prosody-specific fundamental acoustic dimensions of the speech signal.

Reading aloud in Persian: ERP evidence for an early locus of the masked onset priming effect

The current study investigates reading aloud words in Persian, a language that does not mark all its vowels in the script. Behaviorally, a masked onset priming effect (MOPE) was revealed for transparent words, with faster speech onset latencies in the phoneme-matching condition (i.e. phonological prime and target onset overlap; e.g. [symbol: see text] /sɒːl/; 'year' [symbol: see text] /sot/; 'voice') than the phoneme-mismatching condition (e.g. [symbol: see text] /tɒːb/ 'swing' - [symbol: see text] /sot/; 'voice'). For opaque target words (e.g. [symbol: see text] /solh/; 'peace'), no such effect was found. However, event-related potentials (ERPs) did reveal an amplitude difference between the two prime conditions in the 80-160 ms time window for transparent as well as opaque words. Only for the former, this effect continued into the 300-480 ms time window. This finding constrains the time course of the MOPE and suggests the simultaneous activation of both the non-lexical grapheme-to-phoneme and the lexical route in the dual-route cascaded (DRC) model.

Orthographic and phonological facilitation in speech production: new evidence from picture naming in Chinese

Picture naming is facilitated when a target picture (e.g. of a cat) is accompanied by a form-related context word (e.g. CAP) relative to an unrelated word (e.g. PEN). Because in alphabetic languages phonological and orthographic similarity are confounded, Chinese, a logographic language, has been employed to study these two effects in isolation. The results obtained suggest that the orthographic facilitation effect is localized at an earlier processing level than the phonological facilitation effect. In the present study we examine this issue again, using an experimental design in which the context words in the related and unrelated conditions are optimally matched. In contrast to the earlier studies Experiments 1 and 2 fail to show differences in the time course of the two context effects. Moreover, Experiment 3 provides direct evidence against an early, conceptual locus of orthographic facilitation. Our findings indicate that in Chinese language production both orthographically and phonologically related context words have their effect at the rather late level of word-form encoding.

Independent distractor frequency and age-of-acquisition effects in picture-word interference: fMRI evidence for post-lexical and lexical accounts according to distractor type

In two fMRI experiments, participants named pictures with superimposed distractors that were high or low in frequency or varied in terms of age of acquisition. Pictures superimposed with low-frequency words were named more slowly than those superimposed with high-frequency words, and late-acquired words interfered with picture naming to a greater extent than early-acquired words. The distractor frequency effect (Experiment 1) was associated with increased activity in left premotor and posterior superior temporal cortices, consistent with the operation of an articulatory response buffer and verbal self-monitoring system. Conversely, the distractor age-of-acquisition effect (Experiment 2) was associated with increased activity in the left middle and posterior middle temporal cortex, consistent with the operation of lexical level processes such as lemma and phonological word form retrieval. The spatially dissociated patterns of activity across the two experiments indicate that distractor effects in picture-word interference may occur at lexical or postlexical levels of processing in speech production.

The nature of hemispheric specialization for linguistic and emotional prosodic perception: a meta-analysis of the lesion literature

It is unclear whether there is hemispheric specialization for prosodic perception and, if so, what the nature of this hemispheric asymmetry is. Using the lesion-approach, many studies have attempted to test whether there is hemispheric specialization for emotional and linguistic prosodic perception by examining the impact of left vs. right hemispheric damage on prosodic perception task performance. However, so far no consensus has been reached. In an attempt to find a consistent pattern of lateralization for prosodic perception, a meta-analysis was performed on 38 lesion studies (including 450 left hemisphere damaged patients, 534 right hemisphere damaged patients and 491 controls) of prosodic perception. It was found that both left and right hemispheric damage compromise emotional and linguistic prosodic perception task performance. Furthermore, right hemispheric damage degraded emotional prosodic perception more than left hemispheric damage (trimmed g=-0.37, 95% CI [-0.66; -0.09], N=620 patients). It is concluded that prosodic perception is under bihemispheric control with relative specialization of the right hemisphere for emotional prosodic perception.

The functional unit of Japanese word naming: evidence from masked priming

Theories of language production generally describe the segment as the basic unit in phonological encoding (e.g., Dell, 1988; Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999). However, there is also evidence that such a unit might be language specific. Chen, Chen, and Dell (2002), for instance, found no effect of single segments when using a preparation paradigm. To shed more light on the functional unit of phonological encoding in Japanese, a language often described as being mora based, we report the results of 4 experiments using word reading tasks and masked priming. Experiment 1 demonstrated using Japanese kana script that primes, which overlapped in the whole mora with target words, sped up word reading latencies but not when just the onset overlapped. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated a possible role of script by using combinations of romaji (Romanized Japanese) and hiragana; again, facilitation effects were found only when the whole mora and not the onset segment overlapped. Experiment 4 distinguished mora priming from syllable priming and revealed that the mora priming effects obtained in the first 3 experiments are also obtained when a mora is part of a syllable. Again, no priming effect was found for single segments. Our findings suggest that the mora and not the segment (phoneme) is the basic functional phonological unit in Japanese language production planning.

The use of electroencephalography in language production research: a review

Speech production long avoided electrophysiological experiments due to the suspicion that potential artifacts caused by muscle activity of overt speech may lead to a bad signal-to-noise ratio in the measurements. Therefore, researchers have sought to assess speech production by using indirect speech production tasks, such as tacit or implicit naming, delayed naming, or meta-linguistic tasks, such as phoneme-monitoring. Covert speech may, however, involve different processes than overt speech production. Recently, overt speech has been investigated using electroencephalography (EEG). As the number of papers published is rising steadily, this clearly indicates the increasing interest and demand for overt speech research within the field of cognitive neuroscience of language. Our main goal here is to review all currently available results of overt speech production involving EEG measurements, such as picture naming, Stroop naming, and reading aloud. We conclude that overt speech production can be successfully studied using electrophysiological measures, for instance, event-related brain potentials (ERPs). We will discuss possible relevant components in the ERP waveform of speech production and aim to address the issue of how to interpret the results of ERP research using overt speech, and whether the ERP components in language production are comparable to results from other fields.

Homophonic context effects when naming Japanese kanji: evidence for processing costs?

The current study investigated the effects of phonologically related context pictures on the naming latencies of target words in Japanese and Chinese. Reading bare words in alphabetic languages has been shown to be rather immune to effects of context stimuli, even when these stimuli are presented in advance of the target word (e.g., Glaser & Düngelhoff, 1984 ; Roelofs, 2003 ). However, recently, semantic context effects of distractor pictures on the naming latencies of Japanese kanji (but not Chinese hànzì) words have been observed (Verdonschot, La Heij, & Schiller, 2010 ). In the present study, we further investigated this issue using phonologically related (i.e., homophonic) context pictures when naming target words in either Chinese or Japanese. We found that pronouncing bare nouns in Japanese is sensitive to phonologically related context pictures, whereas this is not the case in Chinese. The difference between these two languages is attributed to processing costs caused by multiple pronunciations for Japanese kanji.

Speaking of which: dissecting the neurocognitive network of language production in picture naming

The noninvasive methods of cognitive neuroscience offer new possibilities to study language. We used neuronavigated multisite transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to determine the functional relevance of 1) the posterior part of left superior temporal gyrus (Wernicke's area), 2) a midportion of Broca's area (slightly posterior/superior to apex of vertical ascending ramus), and 3) the midsection of the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), during overt picture naming. Our chronometric TMS design enabled us to chart the time points at which neural activity in each of these regions functionally contributes to overt speech production. Our findings demonstrate that the midsection of left MTG becomes functionally relevant at 225 ms after picture onset, followed by Broca's area at 300 ms and Wernicke's area at 400 ms. Interestingly, during this late time window, the left MTG shows a second peak of functional relevance. Each area thus contributed during the speech production process at different stages, suggesting distinct underlying functional roles within this complex multicomponential skill. These findings are discussed and framed in the context of psycholinguistic models of speech production according to which successful speaking relies on intact, spatiotemporally specific feed forward and recurrent feedback loops within a left-hemispheric fronto-temporal brain connectivity network.

The sensory consequences of speaking: parametric neural cancellation during speech in auditory cortex

When we speak, we provide ourselves with auditory speech input. Efficient monitoring of speech is often hypothesized to depend on matching the predicted sensory consequences from internal motor commands (forward model) with actual sensory feedback. In this paper we tested the forward model hypothesis using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. We administered an overt picture naming task in which we parametrically reduced the quality of verbal feedback by noise masking. Presentation of the same auditory input in the absence of overt speech served as listening control condition. Our results suggest that a match between predicted and actual sensory feedback results in inhibition of cancellation of auditory activity because speaking with normal unmasked feedback reduced activity in the auditory cortex compared to listening control conditions. Moreover, during self-generated speech, activation in auditory cortex increased as the feedback quality of the self-generated speech decreased. We conclude that during speaking early auditory cortex is involved in matching external signals with an internally generated model or prediction of sensory consequences, the locus of which may reside in auditory or higher order brain areas. Matching at early auditory cortex may provide a very sensitive monitoring mechanism that highlights speech production errors at very early levels of processing and may efficiently determine the self-agency of speech input.