Journal of Neurolinguistics最新文献

This study investigates the parsing of Italian Wh-questions of the Which-N type. The extraction site could be either the subject or the object noun phrase. The verb following the Which-noun was either a singular or a plural form, immediately disambiguating the Which-N argument role through verb agreement. Reading time on the verb and on the post-verbal noun phrase were significantly shorter for the subject Wh-question than for the object Wh-question. Multi-channel ERP data showed increased P600 amplitudes for the object questions in response to the critical word on the left temporal lobe in the superior temporal gyrus. These findings are in line with the Minimal Chain Principle (De Vincenzi, 1991a) and provide further evidence for the hypothesis that the amplitude and duration of the P600 involve multi-dimensional processes controlling operations such as prediction, retrieval, revising, and structure-building operations needed for assembly (and disassembly) of syntactic relations.

The neural substrates of syntactic movements have been heavily investigated; however, little attention was paid to the fact that there was a cross-linguistic preference for filler-before-gap (filler-first) to gap-before-filler (gap-first) structures in subject-verb-object (SVO) languages. This fMRI study aimed to explore whether there was a cognitive basis for such a preference. Different filler-gap orders resulting from various syntactic movements were tested in Chinese: topicalization (filler-first) and relativization (gap-first, including subject and object relative clauses). The data showed that gap-first vs. filler-first contrasts activated the left anterior temporal gyrus (L-ATL) and sometimes the left thalamus. We argued that the L-ATL (and the left thalamus) was recruited because deeper semantic retrieval was performed on the verb to facilitate its merge with the gap for thematic role assignment. Our results provided a possible cognitive explanation for the preference for filler-first to gap-first structures in SVO languages.

Human language is proposed to be hierarchically constructed according to syntactic information. Studies on languages with overt morphosyntactic markers (e.g., German) have found a key frontotemporal syntactic network that includes Broca's area (Brodmann Area, BA 44/45) and the posterior temporal cortex (pTC). Whether this syntactic network is language-general is still unspecified. Mandarin Chinese is a suggestive empirical test case, lacking morphosyntax and relying heavily on function words to guide syntactic hierarchy construction. By developing the jabberwocky sentence paradigm, we created sets of visually-presented Chinese structures formed by function words and pseudo-words (the structure condition), and contrasted the structures with comparable word lists (the word-list condition) in healthy Chinese-speaking adults in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment. Participants were required to identify the syntactic category of each structure by merging its constituents into syntactic hierarchies, guided by function words. Compared with the word-list condition, the structure condition (a) elicited higher involvement of left BA 44, and (b) recruited a language-general syntactic network as revealed by the effective connectivity between BA 44, precentral gyrus, and pTC. These findings specified the neural basis for Chinese syntax and further corroborated the unique human language faculty across languages in a neurobiologically ubiquitous fashion.

In the present study, Chinese–English bilinguals were asked to name English words in a delayed word naming task while recording the ERP data. We explored the interactions between age of acquisition (AoA) of second language (L2) words and other variables to examine the origins of L2 AoA effects. The results showed significant L2 AoA effects on N400 and LPC, with larger N400 and smaller LPC for later-acquired L2 words. On N170, the L2 AoA effect was modulated by the orthographic neighbourhood size and the spelling–sound onset consistency in the left hemisphere. That is, the L2 AoA effect was significant for words with fewer neighbours and inconsistent mappings but not for words with more neighbours and consistent mappings. Our results showed that L2 AoA has an early and long-lasting influence on word naming, and these effects arise from both spelling–sound connections and semantic representation. These findings support an integrated view of the Semantic and Arbitrary Mapping Hypotheses.

Communication, specifically the elements crucial for typical social interaction, can be significantly affected in psychiatric illness, especially depression. Of specific importance to conversational competence are familiar expressions (prefabricated expressions known to the language community) including formulaic expressions (conversational speech formulas and idioms; these are high in nuance) and lexical bundles (fixed linguistic segments that are prevalent in naturalistic conversation; low in nuance). The goals of this study were to examine familiar language production in the naturalistic, conversational speech of individuals with treatment-resistant depression before and after receiving surgical deep brain stimulation of the subcallosal cingulate white matter pathways and to compare their performance to healthy adults’ familiar language use. Results revealed fewer conversational speech formulas (typically nuanced) produced by those with depression pre- and post-operatively as compared to healthy controls. There was an increase in the production of non-nuanced familiar expressions (largely lexical bundles) and a decrease in nuanced expressions (formulaic expressions) post-operatively when compared to the pre-operative condition for those with depression. These results conform to a recent model that distinguishes three distinct classes of familiar language, based on linguistic and neurological criteria. This study offers a first look at familiar language in depression and provides a foundation for further study into the pragmatic components of communication to help address the often-reported diminished social connectedness experienced by those with depression.

This paper proposes an understanding of agrammatism from the perspective of a recent usage-based theory of grammatical status, the ProGram theory (Boye and Harder, 2012). According to this theory, grammatical elements have two central properties: they are by convention discursively secondary (i.e. attentional background) and dependent on combination with a host item. The paper first surveys studies of agrammatic speech which, based on or reconsidered in relation to the above-mentioned criteria, show that the usage-based theory makes correct predictions about the behaviour of linguistic elements in agrammatic speech. Subsequently, the paper outlines and discusses two hypotheses about the mechanism behind agrammatism that can be derived from each of the two central properties of grammatical items. According to the prominence hypothesis, agrammatism is due to insufficient overall processing resources; this leads to a prioritization of lexical over grammatical expressions because the latter, being discursively secondary, can be dispensed with for communicative purposes. According to the dependence hypothesis, agrammatism results from an impaired capacity for combining or unifying simple elements into complex wholes: This impairment affects grammatical elements in particular, because these are dependent on (combination with) host items.

Perceiving and comprehending speech depends on the intelligibility of the speech signal. Frequently, communication occurs with adverse listening conditions including background noise or reverberation which compromise the intelligibility of the speech signal. Studies focused on the effects of these extrinsic degrading factors on the perception of a message after it has been produced. Fewer studies, however, explored the effect of a non-native accent on speech perception and comprehension (Anderson-Hsieh et al., 1992; Munro & Derwing, 1995; van Wijngaarden et al., 2002).

Objective

This study determines the effects of speech from a non-native speaker of English on semantic processing as it occurs in speech perception.

Design

Individuals made judgements about semantically congruent or incongruent sentences spoken by native or non-native accented speakers while we assessed processing of semantic information using behavioral and neurophysiological (ERP) responses.

Study sample

Two groups of 12 individuals between 20 and 30 years of age participated in this study.

Results

The results revealed a later N400 in response to a non-native accent.

Conclusions

N400 effect results indicated that, compared to a native accent, listening to non-native accent increases semantic processing difficulty, even with relevant semantic context.

Word/picture verification has been found to be a sensitive measure of lexical-semantic abilities in post-stroke aphasia and reveals information about disruptions in semantic and phonological processing. Exploration of the nature of auditory comprehension deficits using word/picture verification has not been replicated in primary progressive aphasia (PPA). We tested 108 individuals with PPA [logopenic variant PPA (lvPPA), n = 50; nonfluent agrammatic PPA (nfaPPA), n = 36; semantic variant PPA (svPPA), n = 22] on a spoken word/picture verification task and a spoken word/picture matching task. The spoken word/picture matching task identified 22 (20%) of individuals as impaired, whereas the spoken word/picture verification task identified 51 (47%) of individuals as impaired (two-tailed p < 0.001). Errors on spoken word/picture verification were due to semantic rather than phonologic foils in lvPPA (nouns, p < 0.001; verbs, p < 0.001), svPPA (nouns, p < 0.001; verbs, p < 0.001), and for nouns (p = 0.001) but not verbs in nfaPPA. Spoken word/picture verification was a more sensitive measure of single-word auditory comprehension deficits in PPA than word/picture matching. The error pattern, consistent with the distributed model of semantic knowledge, suggests that degradation of semantic representations for both nouns and verbs can occur in lvPPA, which may help to distinguish lvPPA versus nfaPPA and guide treatment for anomia.