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• Anodal HD-tDCS facilitated verb learning. • Enhanced connectivity between IFG and TPJ improved verb learning. • Robust word learning linked to enhanced network interactions. • Behavioral activation of one area and tDCS of another area can induce network modulation. Neurobehavioral studies have provided evidence for the effectiveness of anodal tDCS on language production, by stimulation of the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) or of left Temporo-Parietal Junction (TPJ). However, tDCS is currently not used in clinical practice outside of trials, because behavioral effects have been inconsistent and underlying neural effects unclear. Here, we propose to elucidate the neural correlates of verb and noun learning and to determine if they can be modulated with anodal high-definition (HD) tDCS stimulation. Thirty-six neurotypical participants were randomly allocated to anodal HD-tDCS over either the left IFG, the left TPJ, or sham stimulation. On day one, participants performed a naming task (pre-test). On day two, participants underwent a new-word learning task with rare nouns and verbs concurrently to HD-tDCS for 20 min. The third day consisted of a post-test of naming performance. EEG was recorded at rest and during naming on each day. Verb learning was significantly facilitated by left IFG stimulation. HD-tDCS over the left IFG enhanced functional connectivity between the left IFG and TPJ and this correlated with improved learning. HD-tDCS over the left TPJ enabled stronger local activation of the stimulated area (as indexed by greater alpha and beta-band power decrease) during naming, but this did not translate into better learning. Thus, tDCS can induce local activation or modulation of network interactions. Only the enhancement of network interactions, but not the increase in local activation, leads to robust improvement of word learning. This emphasizes the need to develop new neuromodulation methods influencing network interactions. Our study suggests that this may be achieved through behavioral activation of one area and concomitant activation of another area with HD-tDCS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A basic idea in cognitive science is that practicing a response can lead to the automatic activation of the response. Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, and Kardes (1986) tested that idea on the automatic activation of attitudes. In the experiment that Fazio et al. conducted, participants (N = 18) repeatedly categorized eight nouns as good/bad and eight nouns (the control words) as having one syllable or more. The measure of automatic activation of attitudes was evaluative priming: Participants categorized target adjectives as good/bad faster if their valence matched the valence of a prime noun that appeared before them. This priming effect was stronger for repeatedly evaluated words than for control words. Many have cited this article as evidence that practice automatizes evaluation, but the published research that followed focused on the evaluative priming effect, providing only one incidental and unsuccessful replication for the effect of practice on automatic evaluation. In light of the importance of this finding on the one hand, and the lack of a solid evidential basis for it on the other hand, we conducted three experiments that tested the effect of practice on evaluative priming effect. We attempted to directly replicate the original procedure in Experiments 1a and 1b (N = 108, 102, respectively), with Experiment 1b fixing an unintended prime-target contingency in Experiment 1a. Experiment 2 (N = 172) provided a conceptual replication with modified procedures. Practice in evaluation increased priming only in Experiment 1a. The inconsistent results prevent strong conclusions that practicing an evaluative response automates it, necessitating further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Representation of lexical event concepts examined using two fMRI and EEG studies. • Event nouns compared to object nouns matched for concreteness in two tasks. • Left AG, ATL, and PCC identified for event compared to object concepts. • ERPs show greater amplitude for events in 300–500 ms window. • Event concepts are represented in major semantic hub regions. Events are a fundamentally important part of our understanding of the world. How lexical concepts denoting events are represented in the brain remains controversial. We conducted two experiments using event and object nouns matched on a range of psycholinguistic variables, including concreteness, to examine spatial and temporal characteristics of event concepts. Both experiments used magnitude and valence tasks on event and object nouns. The fMRI experiment revealed a distributed set of regions for events, including the angular gyrus, anterior temporal lobe, and posterior cingulate across tasks. In the EEG experiment, events and objects differed in amplitude within the 300–500 ms window. Together these results shed light into the spatiotemporal characteristics of event concept representation and show that event concepts are represented in the putative hubs of the semantic system. While these hubs are typically associated with object semantics, they also represent events, and have a likely role in temporal integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Generalization of object nouns and relational nouns is influenced by semantic distance between learning items and between learning and transfer items. • The benefits of comparison are limited to semantically close transfer domains in young children (three to four year olds) whereas they include remote transfer items in older children (five to six year olds). • Older children are more likely than younger children to cope with cognitive constraints associated with semantic distance. There is considerable evidence showing that, in novel noun learning and generalization tasks, comparisons of several learning stimuli lead to more taxonomically based generalizations of novel nouns than single stimulus presentations. This study investigated the role of semantic distance (close vs. far) between learning examples and between learning examples and transfer items (near vs. distant) in comparison designs. In two experiments, we investigated the case of object nouns (e.g., foods, Experiment 1) and relational nouns (e.g., is the cutter for, Experiment 2) in 4- to 6-year-old and 3- to 4-year-old children, respectively. As predicted, the comparison conditions led to better results than the no-comparison conditions. In comparison conditions, far training items and near generalization items gave the best performance. Semantic distance effects are discussed in terms of abstracted representations during learning as well as in terms of cognitive constraints on generalization. It is argued that both object nouns and relational nouns are construed in the light of the type of example used during learning (i.e., single or multiple). Depending on the distance between learning and generalization items, children build different categories and are more or less likely to accept distant referents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Type-nouns common to English, Dutch, and Polish were studied, & compared to Swahili. • The joint structure in English, Dutch, and Polish exhibits Big Five plus Conformism. • Swahili type-nouns emphasize morality, Negative Valence, and Agreeableness-content. • Type-nouns generally are rhetorical-affronting; in Swahili it is more edifying. • Type-nouns add to the descriptive potential of the personality trait vocabulary. We compared three trait-structures based on type-nouns, to find their common kernel structure. We used ratings from 607 participants on 372 English type-nouns, 800 participants on 571 Dutch type-nouns, and 1,325 participants on 454 Polish typenouns. PCA based factor structures were compared using congruence coefficients. SCA was applied on a joint matrix of type-nouns with ratings from a total of 2,737 participants on 331 type-nouns shared by all three languages. The resulting structure reflected versions of the Big Five, yet narrowed to their oratory role. Finally, the results were compared with a type-nouns based structure in Swahili. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Czech 23-month olds can use gender morphemes to anticipate the upcoming nouns. • Unlike previous studies, we used bound morphemes to mark gender. • Children used gender agreement information before the onset of target nouns. • When turning 2, children in language without articles know grammatical agreement. Abstract Children acquiring Dutch, French, and Spanish can use gender of articles to facilitate the processing of upcoming nouns. The current study examined whether a similar effect can be found for bound gender-marking agreement morphemes in Czech, a language without obligatory articles. The experiment was designed so that the anticipatory effects of gender-marking morphemes before the head noun onset could be observed. In a preferential looking experiment, 33 children (aged 21–24 months) were shown picture pairs that could be labeled with masculine and feminine nouns. They heard a phrase comprising a demonstrative, an adjective, and a noun, where the first two elements were inflected for gender. The inflections were either correct (matching the noun gender) or incorrect (mismatched). Children were also given offline receptive grammar and vocabulary tasks. The group of children as a whole did not show significant differences in looking behavior between the experimental conditions. When split by the grammar task, the high-scoring children showed significant differences between looks toward the target noun in the matched and mismatched conditions even before the onset of the target noun. No significant difference was observed in the low-scoring group and in the groups split by vocabulary. Results suggest that knowledge of the gender system is just emerging before the second birthday and that more advanced children can use gender information encoded in bound morphemes to actively anticipate the upcoming nouns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Korean, it is allowed for an adjective to modify a distant noun that appears after an intervening relative clause instead of an adjacent noun. The current study investigated the time course of syntactic and semantic integration between an adjective (A) and an adjacent noun (N1) and/or a distant noun (N2) during on-line reading comprehension of Korean sentences. Semantic congruence between adjectives and nouns were manipulated, such that A was congruent with both N1 and N2, either with N1 or N2, or with none of N1/N2. The reading times and ERPs to critical words revealed that under A-N1 semantic incongruence, not the processing load of N1, but those of the relative clause verb and N2 which is semantically incongruent with A increased. These results imply that the semantic incongruence suppressed the A-N1 integration until the relative clause verb occurred, and the processor immediately attempted the A-N2 integration for a way out from the ultimate processing breakdown even before the occurrence of the main verb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The generic masculine form biases the brain towards processing men. • The feminine–masculine pair form biases the brain towards processing women. • Neither form elicits early gender-balanced neural computations. In most gender-marked languages, the masculine form is used to refer to male people specifically as well as to people of any gender generically. This dual functionality was shown in behavioral studies to lead to male-biased mental representations. Here, using EEG, we targeted the neurophysiological basis of this bias by investigating whether and how the generic masculine influences the early perceptual and cognitive processing of anaphoric references to men and women. We found that ERP amplitudes in the P200 range were larger for references to women than to men after generic masculine role nouns, while amplitudes in the P300 range were larger for references to men than to women after the feminine–masculine pair form. These findings suggest that the generic masculine primes the perceptual system towards processing men and that neither this form nor the feminine–masculine pair form elicits gender-balanced computations during early processing in the human brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In conversation, interlocutors design referential expressions with respect to both local and historical contexts. Referential expressions that are more specific than necessary given the local context often can be motivated by the historical discourse context. To explore the breadth of the relevant discourse context in conversation, many studies have examined how past references from the previous discourse context affect curre nt language use. Lexical differentiation is apheno menonthat reflects the contribution of discourse history to referential design. The term refers to speakers' tendency to use two different labels (or modifiers) to name two subsequently presented objects from the same category. In multiple studies, this has been replicated in production, butthe size of the effect has been small. I discuss the source of lexical differentiation and identify the factors that can cause the discourse history to exert a larger effect on referential design. Further, I introduce mixed findings regarding lexical differentiation in comprehension: listeners' brain responses reveal clear sensitivity to the discourse history, but this is not observed in behavioral measures (e.g., eyemovements). Lastly, lexical differentiation can reveal the interaction of memory and referential design in cognitive processes, and, thus, I discuss potential future work that could elucidate the mechanisms that support in terlo cutors' reference use on the basis of multifa ceted measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linguistic analysis suggests that numeral classifiers carry quantity information. However, previous neuroimaging studies have shown that classifiers did not elicit higher activation in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS), associated with representation of numerical magnitude, than tool nouns did. This study aimed to control the semantic attributes of classifiers and reexamine the underlying neural correlates. Participants performed a semantic distance comparison task in which they judged which one of the two items was semantically closer to the target. Processing classifiers elicited higher activation than tool nouns in the bilateral inferior parietal lobules (IPL), middle frontal gyri (MFG), right superior frontal gyrus (SFG), and left lingual gyrus. Conjunction analysis showed that the IPS was commonly activated for classifiers, numbers, dots, and number words. The results support that classifiers activate quantity representations, implicating that the system of classifiers is part of magnitude cognition. Furthermore, the results suggest that the IPS represents magnitude independent of notations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The processing mechanism of verbs-actions and nouns-objects is a central topic of language research, with robust evidence for behavioral dissociation. The neural basis for these two major word and/or conceptual classes, however, remains controversial. Two experiments were conducted to study this question from the network perspective. Experiment 1 found that nodes of the same class, obtained through task-evoked brain imaging meta-analyses, were more strongly connected with each other than nodes of different classes during resting-state, forming segregated network modules. Experiment 2 examined the behavioral relevance of these intrinsic networks using data from 88 brain-damaged patients, finding that across patients the relative strength of functional connectivity of the two networks significantly correlated with the noun-object vs. verb-action relative behavioral performances. In summary, we found that verbs-actions and nouns-objects are supported by separable intrinsic functional networks and that the integrity of such networks accounts for the relative noun-object- and verb-action-selective deficits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on linguistic performance at the single-word level in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) has mostly been limited to the comprehension and production of nouns, and findings have been inconsistent. Results are likewise limited and controversial regarding the lateralization of the epileptogenic focus. The present study investigates comprehension and production of nouns and verbs in patients with left and right TLE (12 in each group). We designed a comprehension (word-picture matching) test and a production (naming) test, matched on a range of psycholinguistic parameters for the two word classes. The results showed impaired verb comprehension in patients with left TLE and impaired noun and verb production in both groups of patients compared to the control group. Patients with left and right TLE differed significantly on verb comprehension and noun production, whereas verb production was equally impaired in the two groups of patients. These findings suggest difficulties with single-word processing in patients with both left and right TLE, which are more prominent for verbs than for nouns in patients with left TLE. The verb production (action naming) test turned out to be the most effective tool for assessing linguistic difficulties at the single-word level in patients with TLE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Distinctive grammar class processing was studied in a pseudoword paradigm. • Pseudowords were examined with electroencephalography and lexical decision task. • Grammar class processing differs at both, neuronal and behavioral level. • Pseudonouns and pseudoverbs differed in language and attention-related ERPs. • In behavioral task pseudoverbs elicited shorter reaction time latency. When the semantic properties of words are turned off, such as in pseudowords, the grammatical properties of the stimuli indicated through suffixes may provide cues to the meaning. The application of electroencephalography (EEG), combined with the pseudoword paradigm, allows for evaluating the effects of verbs and nouns as linguistic categories within the time course of processing. To contribute to the ongoing discussion regarding the functional processing of words from different grammatical classes, we conducted an EEG experiment, followed by a behavioral lexical decision task (LDT). The EEG and LDT indicated different neural and behavioral reactions to the presented grammar classes, allowing for a deeper understanding of the neuro- and psycholinguistic dimensions of grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We report similarities between the mental representations of events and objects. • People connected bounded events with objects, and unbounded events with substances. • People could build this connection without training or explicit instructions. • Thus atomicity underlies the cognitive structure of both events and objects. Logico-semantic theories have long noted parallels between the linguistic representation of temporal entities (events) and spatial entities (objects): bounded (or telic) predicates such as fix a car resemble count nouns such as sandcastle because they are "atoms" that have well-defined boundaries, contain discrete minimal parts and cannot be divided arbitrarily. By contrast, unbounded (or atelic) phrases such as drive a car resemble mass nouns such as sand in that they are unspecified for atomic features. Here, we demonstrate for the first time the parallels in the perceptual-cognitive representation of events and objects even in entirely non-linguistic tasks. Specifically, after viewers form categories of bounded or unbounded events, they can extend the category to objects or substances respectively (Experiments 1 and 2). Furthermore, in a training study, people successfully learn event-to-object mappings that respect atomicity (i.e., grouping bounded events with objects and unbounded events with substances) but fail to acquire the opposite, atomicity-violating mappings (Experiment 3). Finally, viewers can spontaneously draw connections between events and objects without any prior training (Experiment 4). These striking similarities between the mental representation of events and objects have implications for current theories of event cognition, as well as the relationship between language and thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Noun and verb semantic knowledge interact in adults. • Noun and verb knowledge may impact noun and verb learning in children. • Early noun and verb semantic structure was measured using tools of network science. • Early noun knowledge supported later noun and verb learning. • Early verb knowledge had different relationships with noun and verb learning. In adults, nouns and verbs have varied and multilevel semantic interrelationships. In children, evidence suggests that nouns and verbs also have semantic interrelationships, though the timing of the emergence of these relationships and their precise impact on later noun and verb learning are not clear. In this work, we ask whether noun and verb semantic knowledge in 16–30-month-old children tend to be semantically isolated from one another or semantically interacting from the onset of vocabulary development. Early word learning patterns were quantified using network science. We measured the semantic network structure for nouns and verbs in 3,804 16–30-month-old children at several levels of granularity using a large, open dataset of vocabulary checklist data. In a cross-sectional approach in Experiment 1, early nouns and verbs exhibited stronger network relationships with other nouns and verbs than expected across multiple network levels. Using a longitudinal approach in Experiment 2, we examined patterns of normative vocabulary development over time. Initial noun and verb learning was supported by strong semantic connections to other nouns, whereas later-learned words exhibited strong connections to verbs. Overall, these two experiments suggest that nouns and verbs demonstrate early semantic interactions and that these interactions impact later word learning. Early verb and noun learning is affected by the emergence of noun and verb semantic networks during early lexical development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Named Entity Recognition (NER) is a key NLP task, which is all the more challenging on Web and user-generated content with their diverse and continuously changing language. This paper aims to quantify how this diversity impacts state-of-the-art NER methods, by measuring named entity (NE) and context variability, feature sparsity, and their effects on precision and recall. In particular, our findings indicate that NER approaches struggle to generalise in diverse genres with limited training data. Unseen NEs, in particular, play an important role, which have a higher incidence in diverse genres such as social media than in more regular genres such as newswire. Coupled with a higher incidence of unseen features more generally and the lack of large training corpora, this leads to significantly lower F 1 scores for diverse genres as compared to more regular ones. We also find that leading systems rely heavily on surface forms found in training data, having problems generalising beyond these, and offer explanations for this observation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We examined semantic processing of time using EEG with event and object nouns. • Right parietal electrodes showed an ERP response specific to event duration. • Event nouns elicited stronger the alpha/beta band desynchronization. • Semantic processing of duration nouns involves time perception networks. Experimental evidence suggests that modality-specific concept features such as action, motion, and sound partially rely on corresponding action/perception neural networks in the human brain. Little is known, however, about time-related features of concepts. We examined whether temporal features of concepts recruit networks that subserve time perception in the brain in an EEG study using event and object nouns. Results showed significantly larger ERPs for event duration vs object size judgments over right parietal electrodes, a region associated with temporal processing. Additionally, alpha/beta (10–15 Hz) neural oscillation showed a stronger desynchronization for event duration compared to object size in the right parietal electrodes. This difference was not seen in control tasks comparing event vs object valence, suggesting that it is not likely to reflect a general difference between event and object nouns. These results indicate that temporal features of words may be subserved by time perception circuits in the human brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nouns and verbs can dissociate following brain damage, at both lexical retrieval and morphosyntactic processing levels. In order to document the range and the neural underpinnings of behavioral dissociations, twelve aphasics with disproportionate difficulty naming objects or actions were asked to apply phonologically identical morphosyntactic transformations to nouns and verbs. Two subjects with poor object naming and 2/10 with poor action naming made no morphosyntactic errors at all. Six of 10 subjects with poor action naming showed disproportionate or no morphosyntactic difficulties for verbs. Morphological errors on nouns and verbs correlated at the group level, but in individual cases a selective impairment of verb morphology was observed. Poor object and action naming with spared morphosyntax were associated with non-overlapping lesions (inferior occipitotemporal and fronto-temporal, respectively). Poor verb morphosyntax was observed with frontal-temporal lesions affecting white matter tracts deep to the insula, possibly disrupting the interaction of nodes in a fronto-temporal network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do differences between the syntactic categories of nouns and adjectives for describing persons translate into different patterns of brain activation? In this fMRI study, we compared reading person and object descriptions denoted by nouns or adjectives. Previous behavioral studies found that nouns, describing the more abstract construct of social categories, compared to adjectives, describing the more concrete construct of personality traits, have an impact on the inferences made about a person. Additionally, previous neuroimaging findings suggest that abstract constructs recruit a different pattern of brain activation, compared to more concrete constructs. Participants read sentences describing a protagonist by means of a noun or an adjective, as well as sentences describing objects through a noun or an adjective. The results revealed that reading nouns as opposed to adjectives showed increased activation in the left lingual gyrus for persons, and additionally in the right lingual gyrus for objects. The results indicate that there are limited differences in the processing of nouns and adjectives when describing persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The verb/noun dissociation has often involved the semantic/grammatical confound. We conducted two event-related potentials (ERPs) studies with the aim of minimizing this confound. In Experiment 1 participants named pictures depicting actions, with verbs or nouns and pictures depicting objects with nouns. In Experiment 2, participants named objects (nouns) or actions (verbs/nouns) from the same set of action pictures. Compatible with lexical-semantic processes, semantic category modulated waveform amplitudes and topographic patterns between 250 and 380 ms after picture-onset in Experiment 1. No such effects were observed in Experiment 2. No effects were found for grammatical class in both experiments suggesting that grammatical information is not mandatorily activated during lexical-semantic processes. Given the absence of dissociation when same pictures were used the results are described as feed-forward effects from visual to semantic processing, indicating differential neural networks for lexical selection of action and object words from their corresponding visual referents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric stimulation mapping (ESM) is frequently used during brain surgery to localise higher cognitive functions to avoid post-chirurgical disabilities. Experiments with brain imaging techniques and neuropsychological studies showed differences in the cortical representation and processing of nouns and verbs. The goal of the present study was to investigate whether electric stimulation in specific sites in the frontal cortex disrupted noun and verb production selectively. We found that most of the stimulated areas showed disruption of both verbs and nouns at the inferior frontal gyrus. However, when selective effects were obtained, verbs were more prone to disruption than nouns with important individual differences. The overall results indicate that selective impairments can be observed at inferior and middle frontal regions and the action naming task seems to be more suitable to avoid post-chirurgical language disabilities, as it shows a greater sensitivity to disruption with ESM than the classical object naming task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present research we elaborate on an ecological account (Fiedler, Jung, Wänke & Alexopoulos, 2012) for the unitary distance dimension postulated in construal-level theory, highlighting linguistic influences on distance regulation. We first replicate that distinct action verbs solicit similarly distant or close episodes in many judges, producing strong positive correlations between ratings of four distance aspects (time, space, probability, personal distance). A primary semantic–pragmatic dimension that accounts for a large part of the verb impact is valence: Negative action verbs trigger more distant episodes than positive verbs. Experiment 1 rules out an alternative explanation in terms of participants' mood. Experiment 2 cross-validates the valence effect with a new sample of affective state verbs. Consistent with implicit verb causality, state verbs solicit more distant episodes than action verbs, suggesting lack of intentional control and power as another semantic–pragmatic dimension. Experiment 3 supports this interpretation using high- and low-power nouns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Verb-related activity is consistently found in the left posterior lateral cortex (PLTC), encompassing also regions that respond to visual-motion perception. Besides motion, those regions appear sensitive to distinctions among the entities beyond motion, including that between first- vs . third-person (“third-person bias”). In two experiments, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we studied whether the implied subject (first/third-person) and/or the semantic content (motor/non-motor) of verbs modulate the neural activity in the left PLTC-regions responsive during basic- and biological-motion perception. In those sites, we found higher activity for verbs than for nouns. This activity was modulated by the person (but not the semantic content) of the verbs, with stronger response to third- than first-person verbs. The third-person bias elicited by verbs supports a role of motion-processing regions in encoding information about the entity beyond (and independently from) motion, and sets in a new light the role of these regions in verb processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new approach for intonation stylization that enables the extraction of an intonation representation from prosodically unlabeled data is introduced. This approach yields global and local intonation contour classes arising from a contour-based, parametric and superpositional intonation stylization. Based on findings about the linguistic interpretation of the contour classes derived from corpus statistics and perception experiments, we created simple prediction models for the partial generation of intonation contours from discourse structure defined by discourse segment boundaries and the information status of nouns within these segments. The predicted intonation contours were evaluated by human judgments of adequacy that yielded a high accordance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One aspect of natural language comprehension is understanding how many of what or whom a speaker is referring to. While previous work has documented the neural correlates of number comprehension and quantity comparison, this study investigates semantic number from a cross-linguistic perspective with the goal of identifying cortical regions involved in distinguishing plural from singular nouns. Three fMRI datasets are used in which Chinese, French, and English native speakers listen to an audiobook of a children's story in their native language. These languages are selected because they differ in their number semantics. Across these languages, several well-known language regions manifest a contrast between plural and singular, including the pars orbitalis, pars triangularis, posterior temporal lobe, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. This is consistent with a common brain network supporting comprehension across languages with overt as well as covert number-marking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate how proper and common nouns are represented in the brain independent of memory retrieval processes. Participants were instructed to perform a lexical decision task while dense-array EEG was continuously recorded. Both ERP components (namely N400 and P300) and swLORETA suggested that proper name processing engaged a more widespread neural network and required more cognitive resources than common noun processing. Overall, our results come down in favor of the hypothesis that specific effects of proper vs. common noun processing exist, and they suggest a possible neuro-functional segregation of proper vs. common noun processing. The difference in proper and common noun processing seems to emerge at the level of storage or representation of lexical knowledge, and it may crucially depend on their semantic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful dependency resolution during language comprehension relies on accessing certain representations in memory, and not others. We recently reported event-related potential (ERP) evidence that syntactically unavailable, intervening attractor-nouns interfered during comprehension of Spanish noun-phrase ellipsis (the determiner otra/otro): grammatically correct determiners that mismatched the gender of attractor-nouns elicited a sustained negativity as also observed for incorrect determiners (Martin, Nieuwland, & Carreiras, 2012). The current study sought to extend this novel finding in sentences containing object-extracted relative clauses, where the antecedent may be less prominent. Whereas correct determiners that matched the gender of attractor-nouns now elicited an early anterior negativity as also observed for mismatching determiners, the previously reported interaction pattern was replicated in P600 responses to subsequent words. Our results suggest that structural and gender information is simultaneously taken into account, providing further evidence for retrieval interference during comprehension of grammatical sentences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Accurate phonetic transcription is more difficult to obtain for proper nouns than for regular words. [•] The method consists in a process that extracts phonetic transcriptions from actual utterances, and then filters them. [•] We were able to obtain a decrease of the Word Error Rate (WER) on segments of speech with proper nouns. [•] Results on segment without proper nouns were not affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Concrete nouns and verbs elicit different brain signatures in frontocentral cortex. [•] Abstract nouns and verbs fail to elicit different brain activation patterns. [•] Concrete verbs activate motor and premotor cortex more strongly than concrete nouns. [•] Concrete nouns activate inferior frontal areas more strongly than concrete verbs. [•] Lexical category distinctions in middle temporal cortex cannot be confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We compare single vs. dual system models of inflectional morphology using fMRI. [•] Previous neuroimaging studies rely mostly on English and German, we use Russian. [•] This is the first fMRI study of Russian morphology, verbs and nouns are analyzed. [•] Our findings are more readily compatible with the single-system approach [•] We suggest a processing load explanation for observed activation patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Canonical antonyms give rise to significantly lower N400 amplitudes than non-canonical antonyms or unrelated word pairs. [•] Without context, the difference in N400 amplitude for non-canonical antonyms and unrelated word pairs is not significant. [•] With context, the difference in N400 amplitude between non-canonical antonyms and unrelated word pairs is significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expressives (damn) convey speaker attitude and when used in context (Tom lost the damn dog) can be flexibly applied locally to the noun (dog) or globally to the whole sentence (the situation). We used ERPs to explore brain responses to expressives in sentences. Participants read expressive, descriptive, and pseudoword adjectives followed by nouns in sentences (The damn/black/flerg dog peed on the couch). At the adjective late-positivity-component (LPC), expressives and descriptives showed no difference, suggesting reduced social threat and that readers employ a 'wait-and-see' strategy to interpret expressives. Nouns preceded by expressives elicited a larger frontal P200, as well as reduced N400 and LPC than nouns preceded by descriptives. We associated the frontal P200 with emotional salience, the frontal N400 with mental imagery, and the LPC with cognitive load for combinatorics. We suggest that expressive adjectives are not bound to conceptual integration and conclude that parsers wait-and-see what is being damned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semantic similarity measures play an important role in many natural language processing and information retrieval activities. It is highly challenging to measure semantic similarity with higher accuracy. A notable branch of semantic similarity evaluation based on information content (IC) is popular in this aspect. Intrinsic information content (IIC) models are another wing of IC based evaluation. Both IC based and IIC based approaches majorly handled similarity evaluation of nouns. Research related to semantic similarity assessment of verb pairs are rarely discussed. To bridge this gap, this work examines various IC based, IIC based approaches on verb pairs. A detailed discussion of the existing measures and their drawbacks are mentioned in this work. Strategies based on information content, length and depth of the concepts are discussed and tested on benchmark datasets. Existing intrinsic information content models are enhanced by addressing various issues like (a) dealing concepts with no path in WordNet and (b) handling the synonym sets of verb concepts. Measures based on path length, intrinsic information content, combined strategies and non-linear strategies for verb pairs are thoroughly inspected. This paper also presents novel strategies to understand novel aspects that are not addressed before. The strategies are experimented by generating the synonym sets of required parts-of-speech which proved very effective in improving the correlation with human judgment. Results on benchmark datasets specify that the proposed approaches for verb similarity will be a guiding factor for understanding the natural language processing tasks. • Semantic similarity measures to address the verb pairs. • Path-based, information content based, combined and non-linear strategies for evaluating semantic similarity. • Intrinsic information content models for evaluating semantic similarity. • In this paper, handling the word pairs which does not have path in the semantic network proved effective. • Generating proper synonym sets of the concepts, improved the correlation of the strategies proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Unlike common nouns, person names refer to unique entities and generally have a referring function. We used event-related potentials to investigate the time course of identifying the emotional meaning of nouns and names. The emotional valence of names and nouns were manipulated separately. The results show early N1 effects in response to emotional valence only for nouns. This might reflect automatic attention directed towards emotional stimuli. The absence of such an effect for names supports the notion that the emotional meaning carried by names is accessed after word recognition and person identification. In addition, both names with negative valence and emotional nouns elicited late positive effects, which have been associated with evaluation of emotional significance. This positive effect started earlier for nouns than for names, but with similar durations. Our results suggest that distinct neural systems are involved in the retrieval of names’ and nouns’ emotional meaning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: What helps us determine whether a word is a noun or a verb, without conscious awareness? We report on cues in the way individual English words are spelled, and, for the first time, identify their neural correlates via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We used a lexical decision task with trisyllabic nouns and verbs containing orthographic cues that are either consistent or inconsistent with the spelling patterns of words from that grammatical category. Significant linear increases in response times and error rates were observed as orthography became less consistent, paralleled by significant linear decreases in blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal in the left supramarginal gyrus of the left inferior parietal lobule, a brain region implicated in visual word recognition. A similar pattern was observed in the left superior parietal lobule. These findings align with an emergentist view of grammatical category processing which results from sensitivity to multiple probabilistic cues. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The right hemisphere''s role in language comprehension is supported by results from several neuropsychology and neuroimaging studies. Special interest surrounds right temporoparietal structures, which are thought to be involved in processing novel metaphorical expressions, primarily due to the coarse semantic coding of concepts. In this event related fMRI experiment we aimed at assessing the extent of semantic distance processing in the comprehension of figurative meaning to clarify the role of the right hemisphere. Four categories of German noun noun compound words were presented in a semantic decision task: a) conventional metaphors; b) novel metaphors; c) conventional literal, and; d) novel literal expressions, controlled for length, frequency, imageability, arousal, and emotional valence. Conventional literal and metaphorical compounds increased BOLD signal change in right temporoparietal regions, suggesting combinatorial semantic processing, in line with the coarse semantic coding theory, but at odds with the graded salience hypothesis. Both novel literal and novel metaphorical expressions increased activity in left inferior frontal areas, presumably as a result of phonetic, morphosyntactic, and semantic unification processes, challenging predictions regarding right hemispheric involvement in processing unusual meanings. Meanwhile, both conventional and novel metaphorical expressions induced BOLD signal change in left hemispherical regions, suggesting that even novel metaphor processing involves more than linking semantically distant concepts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper reports a conjunction analysis between semantic relatedness judgment and semantic associate generation of Chinese nouns and verbs with concrete or abstract meanings. The results revealed a verb-specific task-independent region in LpSTG&MTG, and task-dependent activation in a left frontal region in semantic judgment and the left SMG in semantic associate production. The observation of word class effects converged on , but contrasted with null findings in previous reports using a lexical decision task. While word class effects in the left posterior temporal cortices have been described in previous studies of languages with rich inflectional morphology, the significance of this study lies in its demonstration of the effects in these regions in a language known to have little inflectional morphology. In other words, differential neural responses to nouns and verbs can be observed without confounding from morphosyntactic operations or contrasts between actions and objects. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Early language development is characterized by predictable changes in the words children produce and the complexity of their utterances. In infants, these changes could reflect increasing linguistic expertise or cognitive maturation and development. To disentangle these factors, we compared the acquisition of English in internationally-adopted preschoolers and internationally-adopted infants. Parental reports and speech samples were collected for 1year. Both groups showed the qualitative shifts that characterize first-language acquisition. Initially, they produced single-word utterances consisting mostly of nouns and social words. The appearance of verbs, adjectives and multiword utterances was predicted by vocabulary size in both groups. Preschoolers did learn some words at an earlier stage than infants, specifically words referring to the past or future and adjectives describing behavior and internal states. These findings suggest that cognitive development plays little role in the shift from referential terms to predicates but may constrain children’s ability to learn some abstract words. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We present a methodological approach employing magnetoencephalography (MEG) and machine learning techniques to investigate the flow of perceptual and semantic information decodable from neural activity in the half second during which the brain comprehends the meaning of a concrete noun. Important information about the cortical location of neural activity related to the representation of nouns in the human brain has been revealed by past studies using fMRI. However, the temporal sequence of processing from sensory input to concept comprehension remains unclear, in part because of the poor time resolution provided by fMRI. In this study, subjects answered 20 questions (e.g. is it alive?) about the properties of 60 different nouns prompted by simultaneous presentation of a pictured item and its written name. Our results show that the neural activity observed with MEG encodes a variety of perceptual and semantic features of stimuli at different times relative to stimulus onset, and in different cortical locations. By decoding these features, our MEG-based classifier was able to reliably distinguish between two different concrete nouns that it had never seen before. The results demonstrate that there are clear differences between the time course of the magnitude of MEG activity and that of decodable semantic information. Perceptual features were decoded from MEG activity earlier in time than semantic features, and features related to animacy, size, and manipulability were decoded consistently across subjects. We also observed that regions commonly associated with semantic processing in the fMRI literature may not show high decoding results in MEG. We believe that this type of approach and the accompanying machine learning methods can form the basis for further modeling of the flow of neural information during language processing and a variety of other cognitive processes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Healthy aging is characterized by a number of changes on brain structure and function. Several neuroimaging studies have shown an age-related reduction in hemispheric asymmetry on various cognitive tasks, a phenomenon captured by in the Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in Older Adults (HAROLD) model. Although this phenomenon is supported by a range of neuroimaging data on memory and inhibitory processes, there is little evidence concerning changes in hemispheric asymmetry for language processing, and particularly word retrieval, which is assessed with verbal fluency task (VFT). This study aimed to investigate the age-related changes in cerebral oxygenation in the prefrontal cortex for both letter and category VFT, varying the complexity of the criteria (i.e., degree of productivity) and using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Sixteen younger and 16 older adults participated in this study. For both VF conditions, participants were instructed to pronounce as many nouns as possible as a function of high-productivity (e.g., “animals” or “L”) or low-productivity (e.g., “flowers” or “V”) criteria. Behavioral data (i.e., accuracy responses) showed comparable performance in younger and older adults for both VF conditions. However, NIRS data showed more reduced activation (i.e., significantly reduced increase in [O2Hb] and reduced decrease in [HHb]) in older than younger adults for both VFT. In addition, a bilateral effect was found for both groups, suggesting that VFT requires both executive and language functions. The results are discussed in the context of the current theories of aging. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: An event-related potential experiment was conducted to investigate the temporal neural dynamics of animacy processing in the interpretation of classifier–noun combinations. Participants read sentences that had a non-canonical structure, object noun + subject noun + verb + numeral-classifier + adjective. The object noun and its classifier were either (a) congruent, (b) incongruent, but matching in animacy, or (c) incongruent, mismatching in animacy. An N400 effect was observed for both incongruent conditions, but not for additional mismatch in animacy. When only data from participants who accepted the non-canonical structure were analyzed, the animacy mismatch elicited a P600 but still no N400. These findings suggest that animacy information is not used immediately for semantic integration of nouns and their classifiers, but is used in a later analysis reflected by P600. Thus, the temporal neural dynamics of animacy processing in sentence comprehension may be modulated by the relevance of animacy to thematic interpretation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this study, semantic meaning composition is investigated focusing on the ERP correlates of reading of minimal Spanish noun–adjective pairs. Comprehending these constructs requires combining the concepts expressed by nouns with the – not contextually expected – semantic feature expressed by the adjectives. Previous studies have mainly focused on the processing of either semantic anomalies or contextually expected target words; we focus on the comprehension of more natural expressions, manipulating the typicality of the noun–adjective relation. In two different ERP experiments, compared to neutral pairs (monstruo solitario, lonely monster), only anomalous adjectives (monstruo geográfico, geographic monster) elicited increased N400, the effect classically associated with lexical/semantic processing. Low-typicality adjectives that apparently contrasted with the inherent prototypical features associated with the noun (monstruo hermoso, lovely monster) elicited a long-lasting frontal late positive effect (LPC, 550–750ms) in Experiment 1; high-typicality adjectives that expressed redundant information (monstruo horrible, horrible monster) elicited a similar, but shorter, positivity (550–650ms) in Experiment 2. These findings suggest that the combination of non-anomalous noun–adjective pairs involves additional neurocognitive resources to the ones represented by the N400. Correlation analyses indicate that the LPC is associated with a meta-linguistic analysis of the expressions: a significant inverse correlation was found between the stimuli''s naturality and the amplitude of the LPC. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study examined the capability of the left hemisphere (LH) and the right hemisphere (RH) to perform a visual recognition task independently as formulated by the Direct Access Model (). Healthy native Hebrew speakers were asked to categorize nouns and non-words (created from nouns by transposing two middle letters) into man-made and natural categories while their performance and ERPs were recorded. The stimuli were presented parafoveally to the right and left visual fields. As predicted by the Direct Access Model, ERP data showed that both the left hemisphere and right hemisphere were able to differentiate between words and non-words as early as 170ms post-stimulus; these results were significant only for the contralaterally presented stimuli. The N1 component, which is considered to reflect orthographic processing, was larger in both hemispheres in response to the contralateral than the ipsilateral presented stimuli. This finding provides evidence for the RH capability to access higher level lexical information at the early stages of visual word recognition, thus lending weight to arguments for the relatively independent nature of this process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The present study examined the behavioral effects of the first-person possessive pronoun. In each trial, a noun (e.g. cup or bread) was presented to participants after visual presentation of a possessive pronoun “wo de” (Chinese for “my”) or “ta de” (Chinese for “his”), which formed ownership. Half participants were assigned to contextual encoding (CE) condition in which they were required to judge whether they liked the item expressed by a noun from the first or third-person perspective. The rest were assigned to perceptual encoding (PE) condition in which they were asked to judge what color the noun was. A subsequent recall test was performed. The results showed that there were significant memory and response advantages for nouns in “my” ownership under both conditions. The results were discussed with reference to self-specificity and other effects in the current study. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We report four experiments that examined whether bilinguals’ production of one language is affected by the syntactic properties of their other language. Greek–English and English–Greek highly proficient fluent bilinguals produced sentence completions following subject nouns whose translation had either the same or different number. We manipulated whether participants produced completions in the same language as the subject (the source language; one-language production) or the other language (the non-source language; two-language production), and whether they used only one language or both languages within the experimental session. The results demonstrated that the grammar systems of both languages were activated during both one-language and two-language production. The effects of the non-source language were particularly enhanced in two-language utterances, when both languages were used in the experiment, and when it was the bilinguals’ native language. We interpret our results in terms of a model of bilingual sentence production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Do the production and interpretation of patterns of plural forms in noun-noun compounds reveal the workings of innate constraints that govern morphological processing? The results of previous studies on compounding have been taken to support a number of important theoretical claims: first, that there are fundamental differences in the way that children and adults learn and process regular and irregular plurals, second, that these differences reflect formal constraints that govern the way the way regular and irregular plurals are processed in language, and third, that these constraints are unlikely to be the product of learning. In a series of seven experiments, we critically assess the evidence that is cited in support of these arguments. The results of our experiments provide little support for the idea that substantively different factors govern the patterns of acquisition, production and interpretation patterns of regular and irregular plural forms in compounds. Once frequency differences between regular and irregular plurals are accounted for, we find no evidence of any qualitative difference in the patterns of interpretation and production of regular and irregular plural nouns in compounds, in either adults or children. Accordingly, we suggest that the pattern of acquisition of both regular and irregular plurals in compounds is consistent with a simple account, in which children learn the conventions that govern plural compounding using evidence that is readily available in the distribution patterns of adult speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: It is generally held that noun processing is specifically sub-served by temporal areas, while the neural underpinnings of verb processing are located in the frontal lobe. However, this view is now challenged by a significant body of evidence accumulated over the years. Moreover, the results obtained so far on the neural implementation of noun and verb processing appear to be quite inconsistent. The present review briefly describes and critically re-considers the anatomo-correlative, neuroimaging, MEG, TMS and cortical stimulation studies on nouns and verbs with the aim of assessing the consistency of their results, particularly within techniques. The paper also addresses the question as to whether the inconsistency of the data could be due to the variety of the tasks used. However, it emerged that neither the different investigation techniques used nor the different cognitive tasks employed fully explain the variability of the data. In the final section we thus suggest that the main reason for the emergence of inconsistent data in this field is that the cerebral circuits underlying noun and verb processing are not spatially segregated, at least for the spatial resolution currently used in most neuroimaging studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We report the naming performance of a Spanish patient (AQF) suffering from Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA). AQF’s performance revealed a grammatical category-specific deficit, with poorer performance in verb than in noun naming. Furthermore, this dissociation was only present in written naming. Importantly, the patient’s dissociation between nouns and verbs was present also when we studied her performance with homonymous words. We argue that this dissociation is not due to a range of semantic factors but is a true grammatical category-specific deficit located at the lexical level of orthographic processing. Thus, we bring in new evidence in favour of grammatical category representation at a post-semantic level where output modalities are represented separately. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A dissociation between noun and verb processing has been found in brain damaged patients leading to the proposal that different word classes are supported by different neural representations. This notion is supported by the facts that children acquire nouns faster and adults usually perform better for nouns than verbs in a range of tasks. In the present study, we simulated word learning in a variant of the human simulation paradigm that provided only linguistic context information and required young healthy adults to map noun or verb meanings to novel words. The mapping of a meaning associated with a new-noun and a new-verb recruited different brain regions as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging. While new-nouns showed greater activation in the left fusiform gyrus, larger activation was observed for new-verbs in the left posterior middle temporal gyrus and left inferior frontal gyrus (opercular part). Furthermore, the activation in several regions of the brain (for example the bilateral hippocampus and bilateral putamen) was positively correlated with the efficiency of new-noun but not new-verb learning. The present results suggest that the same brain regions that have previously been associated with the representation of meaning of nouns and verbs are also associated with the mapping of such meanings to novel words, a process needed in second language learning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]