142 results on '"Niels O. Schiller"'
Search Results
2. Mapping caudal inferior parietal cortex supports the hypothesis about a modulating cortical area
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Fatemeh Tabassi Mofrad and Niels O. Schiller
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Caudal inferior parietal cortex ,Functional connectivity ,Modulating cortical area ,Cognitive control ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,RC321-571 - Abstract
The cytoarchitectonically tripartite organization of the inferior parietal cortex (IPC) into the rostral, the middle and the caudal clusters has been generally ignored when associating different functions to this part of the cortex, resulting in inconsistencies about how IPC is understood. In this study, we investigated the patterns of functional connectivity of the caudal IPC in a task requiring cognitive control, using multiband EPI. This part of the cortex demonstrated functional connectivity patterns dissimilar to a cognitive control area and at the same time the caudal IPC showed negative functional associations with both task-related brain areas and the precuneus cortex, which is active during resting state. We found evidence suggesting that the traditional categorization of different brain areas into either task-related or resting state-related networks cannot accommodate the functions of the caudal IPC. This underlies the hypothesis about a new brain functional category as a modulating cortical area proposing that its involvement in task performance, in a modulating manner, is marked by deactivation in the patterns of functional associations with parts of the brain that are recognized to be involved in doing a task, proportionate to task difficulty; however, its patterns of functional connectivity in some other respects do not correspond to the resting state-related parts of the cortex. more...
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- 2022
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3. Gender Congruency Effects in Spanish: Behavioral Evidence from Noun Phrase Production
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Ruixue Wu and Niels O. Schiller
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language production ,lexico-syntactic features ,gender congruency effect ,PWI ,Spanish ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,RC321-571 - Abstract
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. more...
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- 2023
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4. Cross-Dialectal Novel Word Learning and Borrowing
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Junru Wu, Wei Zheng, Mengru Han, and Niels O. Schiller
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dialect ,lexical borrowing ,word learning ,lexical processing ,bilingualism ,Psychology ,BF1-990 - Abstract
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. more...
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- 2021
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5. (Not so) Great Expectations: Listening to Foreign-Accented Speech Reduces the Brain’s Anticipatory Processes
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Niels O. Schiller, Bastien P.-A. Boutonnet, Marianne L. S. De Heer Kloots, Marieke Meelen, Bobby Ruijgrok, and Lisa L.-S. Cheng
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prediction ,speech perception ,sentence comprehension ,foreign-accented speech ,Dutch ,native vs. non-native speech processing ,Psychology ,BF1-990 - Abstract
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. more...
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- 2020
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6. Quality of Javanese and Sundanese Vowels
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Arum Perwitasari, Marian Klamer, Jurriaan Witterman, and Niels O. Schiller
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acoustic analysis ,duration ,formants ,vowel quality ,vowel quantity ,Languages and literature of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania ,PL1-8844 - Abstract
The vowel quality of Javanese and Sundanese is influenced by phonation types. The acoustic measurements of the differences in phonation between all Javanese and Sundanese vowels have not been instrumentally examined. Evidence suggests that F1 lowering is a common characteristic of vowel quality correlated with the phonation after the slack-voiced stop /b/. The current study seeks to extend the possible variation in the realization of phonation by Javanese vowels /i/, /e/, /a/, /ə/, /u/ and /o/ and Sundanese vowels /i/, /a/, /ə/, /ɨ/, /e/, /u/ and /o/ after the slack-voiced /b/ and the voiceless glottal /h/. In this experiment, the authors recorded the vowel production of four Javanese and four Sundanese native speakers and measured the formant frequencies (F1 and F2). The results confirm that Javanese and Sundanese vowels are constantly pronounced with lower F1 after /b/. In addition, the Javanese speakers articulate the vowel /ɘ/ rather than schwa /ə/ in the slack-voiced /b/ and voiceless glottal stop /h/, in which the vowel occupies the high-mid central position of the vowel space area. The Sundanese speakers in this study surprisingly produce the expected high vowel /ɨ/ in the high near-front of the vowel space; it is suggested to transcribe this as /ʏ/. The results of the formant frequencies of the Javanese and Sundanese vowels are consistent with the study by Hayward (1993) indicating F1 lowering after the slack-voiced /b/. more...
- Published
- 2017
7. A Review on Grammatical Gender Agreement in Speech Production
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Man Wang and Niels O. Schiller
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grammatical gender ,agreement ,lexico-syntactic feature ,speech production ,ERP ,Psychology ,BF1-990 - Abstract
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. more...
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- 2019
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8. Editorial: (Pushing) the Limits of Neuroplasticity Induced by Adult Language Acquisition
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Jurriaan Witteman, Yiya Chen, Leticia Pablos-Robles, Maria Carmen Parafita Couto, Patrick C. M. Wong, and Niels O. Schiller
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brain ,cognition ,language ,bilingualism ,neuroplasicity ,Psychology ,BF1-990 - Published
- 2018
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9. Distinct connectivity patterns in clusters of inferior parietal cortex
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Fatemeh Tabassi Mofrad and Niels O. Schiller
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The inferior parietal cortex (IPC) is a complex brain region with the rostral, the middle and the caudal clusters, and functionally connected to several other cortical areas. Various cognitive functions are suggested to be governed by the IPC, however, due to ignoring the tripartite structure of this part of the brain, inconsistencies abound. Here, we compare functional connectivity patterns of the clusters of the IPC and highlight that only the rostral cluster of the IPC is involved in executive functions and not the whole IPC. We also elucidate the unique connectivity profiles of the middle and the caudal IPC which are not accommodated by traditional classification of brain areas as either task-based or resting-state related. These two clusters of the IPC demonstrate negative functional associations with brain areas involved in general cognitive functions, executive functions, in addition to the precuneus cortex, proportional to cognitive demand, in a modulating manner. more...
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- 2023
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10. When left is right
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Sarah Von Grebmer Zu Wolfsthurn, Anna Gupta, Leticia Pablos, and Niels O. Schiller
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Linguistics and Language ,Language and Linguistics ,Education - Abstract
Both inhibitory control and typological similarity between two languages feature frequently in current research on multilingual cognitive processing mechanisms. Yet, the modulatory effect of speaking two typologically highly similar languages on inhibitory control performance remains largely unexplored. However, this is a critical issue because it speaks directly to the organisation of the multilingual's cognitive architecture. In this study, we examined the influence of typological similarity on inhibitory control performance via a spatial Stroop paradigm in native Italian and native Dutch late learners of Spanish. Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not find evidence for a differential Stroop effect size for the typologically similar group (Italian–Spanish) compared to the typologically dissimilar group (Dutch–Spanish). Our results therefore suggest a limited influence of typological similarity on inhibitory control performance. The study has critical implications for characterising inhibitory control processes in multilinguals. more...
- Published
- 2023
11. Connectivity profile of middle inferior parietal cortex confirms modulating cortical areas as a new brain category
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Fatemeh Tabassi Mofrad and Niels O. Schiller
- Abstract
According to the correlated transmitter-receptor based organization of the inferior parietal cortex (IPC), this brain area is parcellated into the rostral, the middle and the caudal clusters. However, 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 about the functions of the IPC. Using multiband EPI, in this study, we investigated the functional connectivity profile of the middle IPC while participants performed a task requiring cognitive control. The middle IPC demonstrated functional associations which do not have similarity to a contributing part in the frontoparietal network, in processing cognitive control. At the same time, this part of the cortex showed negative functional connectivity with both the precuneus cortex, which is active during resting state, and brain areas which are involved in general cognitive functions. That is, the functions of the middle IPC are not accommodated by the traditional categorization of different brain areas into either task-related or resting state-related networks. This advanced our hypothesis about modulating cortical areas as a new brain functional category with modulating functions. Such brain areas are characterized by deactivation in the patterns of functional connectivity with parts of the cortex that are involved in task performance, proportionate to task difficulty; however, their functional associations are inconsistent with resting state-related cortical areas. more...
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- 2022
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12. Noun-phrase production as a window to language selection: an ERP study
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Sarah von Grebmer zu Wolfsthurn, Leticia Pablos, and Niels O. Schiller
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Male ,Non-Native Noun Phrase Production ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,EEGEvent-Related Potentials ,Multilingualism ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,P300N400 ,German ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,Event-related potential ,Cognate Facilitation Effect ,Selection (linguistics) ,Humans ,Production (economics) ,Evoked Potentials ,Language ,Language production ,Gender Congruency Effect ,Cross-Linguistic Influence ,Electroencephalography ,Linguistics ,Target Language Selection ,language.human_language ,Noun phrase ,N400 ,body regions ,Late Language Learners ,Time course ,language ,Female ,Psychology ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
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. more...
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- 2021
13. Adjective-noun order in Papiamento-Dutch code-switching
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M. Carmen Parafita Couto, Niels O. Schiller, Bastien Boutonnet, Annelies de Haan, Amy de Jong, Marlou Nadine Perquin, and Leticia Pablos
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050101 languages & linguistics ,Linguistics and Language ,05 social sciences ,nominal constructions ,Papiamento ,code-switching ,Code-switching ,event-related potentials ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Linguistics ,Comprehension ,Event-related potential ,Order (business) ,Noun ,conflict sites ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Production (computer science) ,Psychology ,Dutch ,Adjective ,Word order - Abstract
In Papiamento-Dutch bilingual speech, the nominal construction is a potential ‘conflict site’ if there is an adjective from one language and a noun from the other. Adjective position is pre-nominal in Dutch (cf. rode wijn ‘red wine’) but post-nominal in Papiamento (cf. biña kòrá ‘wine red’). We test predictions concerning the mechanisms underpinning word order in noun-adjective switches derived from three accounts: (i) the adjective determines word order (Cantone & MacSwan, 2009), (ii) the matrix language determines word order (Myers-Scotton, 1993, 2002), and (iii) either order is possible (Di Sciullo, 2014). An analysis of spontaneous Papiamento-Dutch code-switching production (Parafita Couto & Gullberg, 2017) could not distinguish between these predictions. We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to measure online comprehension of code-switched utterances. We discuss how our results inform the three theoretical accounts and we relate them to syntactic coactivation and the production-comprehension link. more...
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- 2021
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14. High amyloid burden is associated with fewer specific words during spontaneous speech in individuals with subjective cognitive decline
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Sander C.J. Verfaillie, Rosalinde E.R. Slot, Jurriaan Witteman, Sietske A.M. Sikkes, Ilanah J. Pruis, Lieke E.W. Vermaat, Mark A. van de Wiel, Bart N.M. van Berckel, Philip Scheltens, Niels O. Schiller, Niels Prins, Wiesje M. van der Flier, Radiology and nuclear medicine, Neurology, Amsterdam Neuroscience - Neurodegeneration, Epidemiology and Data Science, APH - Personalized Medicine, APH - Methodology, and Academic Medical Center more...
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Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Amyloid ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Plaque, Amyloid ,Disease ,Audiology ,Neuropsychological Tests ,Vocabulary ,050105 experimental psychology ,Lemma (psycholinguistics) ,03 medical and health sciences ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,0302 clinical medicine ,Alzheimer Disease ,Noun ,medicine ,Humans ,Speech ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Amyloid burden ,Cognitive Dysfunction ,Cognitive decline ,Pathological ,Aged ,Language ,Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon ,05 social sciences ,Neuropsychology ,Brain ,Middle Aged ,Early Diagnosis ,Female ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Self-perceived word-finding difficulties are common in aging individuals as well as in Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Language and speech deficits are difficult to objectify with neuropsychological assessments. We therefore aimed to investigate whether amyloid, an early AD pathological hallmark, is associated with speech-derived semantic complexity. We included 63 individuals with subjective cognitive decline (age 64 ± 8, MMSE 29 ± 1), with amyloid status (positron emission tomography [PET] scans n = 59, or Aβ1-42 cerebrospinal fluid [CSF] n = 4). Spontaneous speech was recorded using three open-ended tasks (description of cookie theft picture, abstract painting and a regular Sunday), transcribed verbatim and subsequently, linguistic parameters were extracted using T-scan computational software, including specific words (content words, frequent, concrete and abstract nouns, and fillers), lexical complexity (lemma frequency, Type-Token-Ratio) and syntactic complexity (Developmental Level scale). Nineteen individuals (30%) had high levels of amyloid burden, and there were no differences between groups on conventional neuropsychological tests. Using multinomial regression with linguistic parameters (in tertiles), we found that high amyloid burden is associated with fewer concrete nouns (ORmiddle (95%CI): 7.6 (1.4–41.2), ORlowest: 6.7 (1.2–37.1)) and content words (ORlowest: 6.3 (1.0–38.1). In addition, we found an interaction for education between high amyloid burden and more abstract nouns. In conclusion, high amyloid burden was modestly associated with fewer specific words, but not with syntactic complexity, lexical complexity or conventional neuropsychological tests, suggesting that subtle spontaneous speech deficits might occur in preclinical AD. more...
- Published
- 2019
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15. Classifiers in Mandarin Chinese: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence regarding their representation and processing
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Shaoyun Huang and Niels O. Schiller
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Male ,Linguistics and Language ,China ,Phrase ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Lexical Activation ,Event-Related Potentials ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,computer.software_genre ,Mandarin Chinese ,Overt Speech Production ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Numeral system ,03 medical and health sciences ,Speech and Hearing ,0302 clinical medicine ,Semantic similarity ,Competitive Selection ,Noun ,Classifier (linguistics) ,Selection (linguistics) ,Humans ,Chinese Classifier Feature ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Evoked Potentials ,Language ,business.industry ,05 social sciences ,Electroencephalography ,Noun phrase ,language.human_language ,Semantics ,language ,Female ,Artificial intelligence ,business ,Psychology ,computer ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Natural language processing - Abstract
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. more...
- Published
- 2021
16. Context matters for tone and intonation processing in Mandarin
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Niels O. Schiller, Min Liu, and Yiya Chen
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Linguistics and Language ,Sociology and Political Science ,Mandarin ,050109 social psychology ,Context (language use) ,Mandarin Chinese ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Speech and Hearing ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Constraining Context ,Language ,Tone ,Intonation ,05 social sciences ,Neutral Context ,Intonation (linguistics) ,Tone (linguistics) ,General Medicine ,language.human_language ,Linguistics ,Semantics ,Speech Perception ,language ,Psychology ,Sentence - Abstract
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. more...
- Published
- 2021
17. Dual Function of Primary Somatosensory Cortex in Cognitive Control of Language: Evidence from Resting State fMRI
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Fatemeh Tabassi Mofrad, Andrew Jahn, and Niels O. Schiller
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0301 basic medicine ,somatosensory cortex ,Somatosensory system ,03 medical and health sciences ,Cognition ,0302 clinical medicine ,Neural Pathways ,medicine ,Humans ,cognitive control ,Control (linguistics) ,Default mode network ,Dual function ,Language ,Brain Mapping ,multiband EPI ,Resting state fMRI ,Clinical neuroscience ,General Neuroscience ,functional connectivity ,Brain ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex ,030104 developmental biology ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Psychology ,Neuroscience ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,rs-fMRI - Abstract
Resting state functional connectivity can be leveraged to investigate bilingual individual differences in cognitive control of language; however, thus far no report is provided on how the connectivity profiles of brain functional networks at rest point to different language control behavior in bilinguals. In order to address this gap in state-of-the-art research we did a functional connectivity analysis on the resting state data acquired via multiband EPI to investigate three resting state networks of interest namely, the frontoparietal network (FPN), the salience network (SN), and the default mode network (DMN), which are related to cognitive control, between two groups of Dutch–English bilinguals based on how they performed in a language switching task. Results demonstrated that there is the increased coupling of the left primary somatosensory cortex with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the group with better performance in cognitive control of language and the increased coupling of the right primary somatosensory cortex with the inferior parietal cortex in the group with poorer performance in this executive function. As regards these results, we claim that the primary somatosensory cortex has a dual func- tion in coupling with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the inferior parietal cortex in the FPN, and in fact, in what characterizes bilingual individual differences in cognitive control of language in healthy participants. The results of this study provide a model for future research in cognitive control of language and may serve as a ref- erence in clinical neuroscience when bilinguals are diagnosed with dysfunction in cognitive control. more...
- Published
- 2020
18. The time course of speech production revisited: no early orthographic effect, even in Mandarin Chinese
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Niels O. Schiller, Man Wang, Minghu Jiang, and Yiya Chen
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Linguistics and Language ,Speech production ,Computer science ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Zhàng ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,computer.software_genre ,Mandarin Chinese ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Semantic memory ,Encoding (semiotics) ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Language production ,business.industry ,05 social sciences ,Orthographic projection ,language.human_language ,language ,Artificial intelligence ,business ,computer ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Natural language processing ,Orthography - Abstract
Most psycholinguistic models of speech production agree on an earlier semantic processing stage and a later word-form encoding stage. Using a logographic language, Mandarin Chinese, Zhang and Weekes [2009. Orthographic facilitation effects on spoken word production: Evidence from Chinese. Language and Cognitive Processes, 24(7–8), 1082–1096. https://doi.org/10.1080/01690960802042133] reported an early effect of orthography in a picture-word-interference study and suggested orthography affects speech production via a lexical-semantic pathway at an early stage. This early orthographic effect without co-occurrence of phonological effect, however, was not replicated [Zhao, La Heij, & Schiller, 2012. Orthographic and phonological facilitation in speech production: New evidence from picture naming in Chinese. Acta Psychologica, 139(2), 272–280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2011.12.001]. The present study aimed to dissociate further the semantic and phonological representations from orthography by using simplex Chinese characters. The results of Experiment 1 and 2 revealed an orthographic effect but only at a similar point in time as the phonological effect, both of which followed the semantic effect. Our results thus raise further doubts about the role of orthography at the conceptual level of speech planning and lend new evidence to a two-step model of speech production. more...
- Published
- 2020
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19. Basic measures of prosody in spontaneous speech of children with early and late cochlear implantation
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Niels O. Schiller, Daan J. van de Velde, Jeroen J. Briaire, Mieke Beers, Vincent J. van Heuven, Johan H. M. Frijns, Claartje Levelt, and Fryske Akademy (FA)
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Male ,Auditory perception ,Linguistics and Language ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Deafness ,Audiology ,Language and Linguistics ,030507 speech-language pathology & audiology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Speech and Hearing ,0302 clinical medicine ,Speech Production Measurement ,Phonetics ,Assistive technology ,Suprasegmentals ,medicine ,otorhinolaryngologic diseases ,Humans ,Speech ,Postoperative Period ,Child ,030223 otorhinolaryngology ,Prosody ,Cochlear implantation ,Spontaneous speech ,Age differences ,business.industry ,Age Factors ,Infant ,Cochlear Implantation ,Cochlear Implants ,Case-Control Studies ,Child, Preschool ,Female ,0305 other medical science ,business ,Child Language - Abstract
PurposeRelative 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.MethodOf 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.ResultsOn 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.ConclusionsResults 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. more...
- Published
- 2018
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20. Prosody perception and production by children with cochlear implants
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Johan H. M. Frijns, Claartje Levelt, Jeroen J. Briaire, Vincent J. van Heuven, Daan J. van de Velde, Mieke Beers, Niels O. Schiller, and Fryske Akademy (FA)
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Adult ,Male ,Auditory perception ,Linguistics and Language ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Adolescent ,genetic structures ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Deafness ,Stimulus (physiology) ,Audiology ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Correlation ,prosody ,Emotion perception ,Perception ,otorhinolaryngologic diseases ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,medicine ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Emotional expression ,Child ,Prosody ,General Psychology ,media_common ,05 social sciences ,Linguistics ,Cochlear Implantation ,Cochlear Implants ,Emotional prosody ,Case-Control Studies ,Auditory Perception ,Speech Perception ,Female ,phonetic cues ,Psychology ,050104 developmental & child psychology - Abstract
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. more...
- Published
- 2018
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21. Connectivity of the hippocampus and Broca's area during acquisition of a novel grammar
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Johanneke Caspers, Niels O. Schiller, Mischa de Rover, and Olga Kepinska
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Adult ,Male ,Left and right ,Artificial grammar learning ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Prefrontal Cortex ,Hippocampus ,050105 experimental psychology ,Task (project management) ,Young Adult ,Functional connectivity ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Broca's area ,Neural Pathways ,Humans ,Learning ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Prefrontal cortex ,Language ,media_common ,Brain Mapping ,Grammar ,Mechanism (biology) ,fMRI ,05 social sciences ,Language learning ,Language acquisition ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Neurology ,Female ,Psychology ,Psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Following Opitz and Friederici (2003) suggesting interactions of the hippocampal system and the prefrontal cortex as the neural mechanism underlying novel grammar learning, the present fMRI study investigated functional connectivity of bilateral BA 44/45 and the hippocampus during an artificial grammar learning (AGL) task. Our results, contrary to the previously reported interactions, demonstrated parallel (but separate) contributions of both regions, each with their own interactions, to the process of novel grammar acquisition. The functional connectivity pattern of Broca's area pointed to the importance of coherent activity of left frontal areas around the core language processing region for successful grammar learning. Furthermore, connectivity patterns of left and right hippocampi (predominantly with occipital areas) were found to be a strong predictor of high performance on the task. Finally, increasing functional connectivity over time of both left and right BA 44/45 with the right posterior cingulate cortex and the right temporo-parietal areas points to the importance of multimodal and attentional processes supporting novel grammar acquisition. Moreover, it highlights the right-hemispheric involvement in initial stages of L2 learning. These latter interactions were found to operate irrespective of the task performance, making them an obligatory mechanism accompanying novel grammar learning. more...
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- 2018
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22. Cross-linguistic interference in late language learners: An ERP study
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Leticia Pablos Robles, Niels O. Schiller, and Sarah von Grebmer zu Wolfsthurn
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Linguistics and Language ,P600 effect ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Multilingualism ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Spanish ,Cognate facilitation effect ,Language and Linguistics ,Single-trial EEG analysis ,German ,Speech and Hearing ,Grammatical gender ,Late language learners ,Noun ,Humans ,Cognate ,Evoked Potentials ,Gender congruency effect ,Language ,Cross-linguistic interference ,Neural correlates of consciousness ,P600 ,Electroencephalography ,Linguistics ,language.human_language ,Noun phrase ,language ,Psychology ,ERP ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
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. more...
- Published
- 2021
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23. Neural correlates of spoken word production in semantic and phonological blocked cyclic naming
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Zeshu Shao, Niels O. Schiller, Man Wang, and Yiya Chen
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Spoken word ,Linguistics and Language ,Neural correlates of consciousness ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,Language production ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Speech recognition ,05 social sciences ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Phonology ,Electroencephalography ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Lexical selection ,Homogeneous ,Incremental learning ,medicine ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
The blocked cyclic naming paradigm has been increasingly employed to investigate the mechanisms underlying spoken word production. Semantic homogeneity typically elicits longer naming latencies than heterogeneity; however, it is debated whether competitive lexical selection or incremental learning underlies this effect. The current study manipulated both semantic and phonological homogeneity and used behavioural and electrophysiological measurements to provide evidence that can distinguish between the two accounts. Results show that naming latencies are longer in semantically homogeneous blocks, but shorter in phonologically homogeneous blocks, relative to heterogeneity. The semantic factor significantly modulates electrophysiological waveforms from 200 ms and the phonological factor from 350 ms after picture presentation. A positive component was demonstrated in both manipulations, possibly reflecting a task-related top-down bias in performing blocked cyclic naming. These results provide novel insights into the neural correlates of blocked cyclic naming and further contribute to the understanding of spoken word production. more...
- Published
- 2017
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24. The perception of emotion and focus prosody with varying acoustic cues in cochlear implant simulations with varying filter slopes
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Mieke Beers, Niels O. Schiller, Joost R. van Ginkel, Daan J. van de Velde, Claartje Levelt, Jeroen J. Briaire, Vincent J. van Heuven, Johan H. M. Frijns, and Fryske Akademy (FA)
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Speech Communication ,Adult ,Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Speech perception ,Adolescent ,Acoustics and Ultrasonics ,Voice Quality ,Acoustics ,medicine.medical_treatment ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Emotions ,Audiology ,01 natural sciences ,Speech Acoustics ,Young Adult ,03 medical and health sciences ,Discrimination, Psychological ,0302 clinical medicine ,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) ,Phonetics ,Cochlear implant ,Perception ,0103 physical sciences ,medicine ,Octave ,Humans ,030223 otorhinolaryngology ,Prosody ,010301 acoustics ,media_common ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,Auditory Threshold ,Cochlear Implantation ,Electric Stimulation ,Cochlear Implants ,Acoustic Stimulation ,Duration (music) ,Speech Perception ,Audiometry, Pure-Tone ,Female ,Cues ,Audiometry ,Audiometry, Speech ,Psychology - Abstract
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. more...
- Published
- 2017
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25. On neural correlates of individual differences in novel grammar learning: An fMRI study
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Olga Kepinska, Johanneke Caspers, Niels O. Schiller, and Mischa de Rover
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Adult ,Male ,Artificial grammar learning ,Brain activity and meditation ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,education ,Individuality ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,050105 experimental psychology ,Young Adult ,03 medical and health sciences ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,0302 clinical medicine ,Supramarginal gyrus ,Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ,Humans ,Middle frontal gyrus ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Temporal cortex ,Analysis of Variance ,Brain Mapping ,Neural correlates of consciousness ,Artificial Grammar Learning ,fMRI ,05 social sciences ,Brain ,Language learning ,Verbal Learning ,Language acquisition ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Second-language acquisition ,Semantics ,Oxygen ,Individual differences ,Second language acquisition ,Female ,Language aptitude ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
We examine the role of language analytical ability, one of the components of language aptitude – a specific ability for learning languages – during acquisition of a novel grammar. We investigated whether the neural basis of Artificial Grammar Learning (AGL) differs between populations of highly and moderately skilled learners. Participants performed an AGL task during an fMRI scan and data from task's test phases were analysed. Highly skilled learners performed better than moderately skilled ones and engaged during the task more neural resources in the right hemisphere, i.e. in the right angular/supramarginal gyrus and superior frontal and middle frontal gyrus and in the posterior cingulate gyrus. Additional analyses investigating the temporal dynamics of brain activity during learning revealed lateralisation differences in the modulation of activity in the parietal and temporal cortex. In particular, the left angular gyrus BOLD activity was coupled with high performance on the AGL task and with a steep learning curve. more...
- Published
- 2017
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26. Cognitive demand modulates connectivity patterns of rostral inferior parietal cortex in cognitive control of language
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Fatemeh Tabassi Mofrad and Niels O. Schiller
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Rostral inferior parietal cortex ,Adult ,Male ,cognitive demand ,Adolescent ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Multilingualism ,Gyrus Cinguli ,050105 experimental psychology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Executive Function ,Young Adult ,0302 clinical medicine ,Inferior parietal cortex ,Hardware_GENERAL ,Parietal Lobe ,parasitic diseases ,Connectome ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,cardiovascular diseases ,cognitive control ,Control (linguistics) ,Neuroscience of multilingualism ,Hardware_MEMORYSTRUCTURES ,Psycholinguistics ,Echo-Planar Imaging ,Functional connectivity ,05 social sciences ,functional connectivity ,Cognition ,bilingualism ,Frontal Lobe ,nervous system ,Female ,Line (text file) ,Psychology ,Neuroscience ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
The inferior parietal cortex (IPC) is involved in di!erent cognitive functions including language. In line with the correlated transmitter receptor-based organization of the IPC, this part of the brain is parcellated into the rostral, the middle and the caudal clusters; however, the tripartite organization of the IPC has not been addressed in studies with a focus on cognitive control of language. Using multiband EPI, in this study we investigated how the rostral IPC contributes to this executive function in bilinguals. In doing so, we focused on the functional connectivity patterns of this part of the cortex with other brain areas in a context characterized with language engagement and disengagement that recruits the neural mechanisms of cognitive control. We found that in switch- ing to L2, which was cognitively less demanding, the right rostral IPC had positive functional connectivity with the anterior division of the cingulate gyrus and the precentral gyrus. However, in switching to L1, which was cognitively more demanding, the right IPC rostral cluster had negative functional coupling with the postcentral gyrus and the precuneus cortex and positive connectivity with the posterior lobe of the cerebellum. In this condition, the left IPC rostral cluster had negative functional coupling with the superior frontal gyrus and the precuneus cortex. Thus, the connectiv- ity patterns of the rostral IPC was in"uenced by the cognitive demand in an asymmetrical and lateral manner during cognitive control of language. more...
- Published
- 2019
27. Phonological encoding in speech production
- Author
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Niels O. Schiller
- Subjects
Speech production ,Computer science ,Speech recognition ,Phonological encoding - Published
- 2019
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28. Evidence for syntactic feature transfer between two languages
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Niels O. Schiller
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Cognitive model ,Structure (mathematical logic) ,Linguistics and Language ,Grammatical gender ,Computer science ,Representation (arts) ,Goad ,bilingualism ,Language and Linguistics ,Linguistics ,syntactic features ,Feature (linguistics) ,Stress (linguistics) ,grammatical gender ,transfer ,Plural - Abstract
In this commentary, I would like to support Goad and White’s (2019, henceforth G&W) claim that the morphosyntactic feature system in the L2 does not have to be defective due to certain syntactic features not being activated in the L1. I will base my point on the example of grammatical gender. Moreover, I would like to stress the importance of developing processing models for lexico-syntactic features in bilingual speakers. Processing models may be able to account for why L2 learners behave in a particular way. For instance, G&W (p. 791) refer to a study by Goad et al. (2011), suggesting that “beginners fluctuate between deletion of the plural and resorting to the structure for verbal inflection”. However, they do not provide an answer as to why L2 learners behave in that way. In other words, a processing account is missing. A comprehensive (neuro-)cognitive model of grammatical feature representation and processing may help understand error patterns in L2 production. more...
- Published
- 2019
29. Dynamic effect of tonal similarity in bilingual auditory lexical processing
- Author
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Niels O. Schiller, Junru Wu, Vincent J. van Heuven, Yiya Chen, and Fryske Akademy (FA)
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Linguistics and Language ,lexical access ,Computer science ,Bilingualism ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Speech recognition ,Word processing ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Mandarin Chinese ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,cognate ,Similarity (psychology) ,Lexical decision task ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Neuroscience of multilingualism ,05 social sciences ,Tone (linguistics) ,cross-linguistic similarity ,language.human_language ,tone ,language ,Standard Chinese ,Bilingual lexical access ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Phonological similarity affects bilingual lexical access of etymologically-related translation equivalents (ETEs). Jinan Mandarin (JM) and Standard Chinese (SC) are closely related and share many ETEs, which are usually orthographically and segmentally identical but vary in tonal similarity. Using an auditory lexical decision experiment and Generalised Additive Modelling, the present study investigates how cross-linguistic tonal similarity interacts with language of operation and how the switching of language across blocks influences SC-JM bilinguals’ auditory lexical processing of ETEs. Bilinguals showed a language dominance effect, indicating that ETEs are specified with separated word-form representations. Compared with SC tonal monolinguals, bilinguals showed a discontinuous bilingual auditory lexical advantage, instead of a classical bilingual lexical disadvantage. The dynamic role of cross-linguistic tonal similarity in auditory word processing is discussed in light of the bilinguals’ attentional shift with the change of language mode at the pre-lexical and lexical stages. more...
- Published
- 2019
30. The Oxford Handbook of Neurolinguistics
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G.I. de Zubicaray and Niels O. Schiller
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Neurolinguistics ,Psychology ,Classics - Abstract
Neurolinguistics is a young and highly interdisciplinary field, with influences from psycholinguistics, psychology, aphasiology, (cognitive) neuroscience, and many more. The scope and aim of this new Oxford Handbook of Neurolinguistics is to provide students and scholars with concise overviews of the state of the art in particular topic areas, and to engage a broad audience with an interest in the neurobiology of language. The chapters do not attempt to provide exhaustive coverage, but rather present discussions of prominent questions posed by a given topic. Part I covers the key techniques and technologies used to study the neurobiology of language today. Part II addresses the neurobiology of language acquisition during healthy development and in response to challenges presented by congenital and acquired conditions. Part III covers the many facets of the articulate brain, and its capacity for language production: written, spoken, and signed. Questions regarding how the brain comprehends meaning, including emotions, at word and discourse levels are addressed in Part IV. The final Part V reaches into broader territory, characterizing and contextualizing the neurobiology of language with respect to more fundamental neuroanatomical mechanisms and general cognitive domains. more...
- Published
- 2019
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31. Towards a neural model of infant cry perception
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J.K. Rilling, Peter A. Bos, Niels O. Schiller, Jurriaan Witteman, Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg, and M.H. Van IJzendoorn
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endocrine system ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Cry ,Emotions ,Inferior frontal gyrus ,Prefrontal Cortex ,Crying ,03 medical and health sciences ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,Reward system ,0302 clinical medicine ,Perception ,medicine ,Auditory system ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,050102 behavioral science & comparative psychology ,Prefrontal cortex ,Infant crying ,Auditory ,media_common ,Emotion ,Anterior insula ,Brain Mapping ,Motor area ,Parenting ,05 social sciences ,Infant ,Brain ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Psychology ,Neuroscience ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,psychological phenomena and processes - Abstract
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. more...
- Published
- 2019
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32. Formant Frequencies and Vowel Space Area in Javanese and Sundanese English Language Learners
- Author
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Arum Perwitasari, Niels O. Schiller, Marian Klamer, and AAA
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Linguistics and Language ,Communication ,Engineering ,Literature and Literary Theory ,business.industry ,First language ,phonetics ,Phonetics ,language teaching ,bilingualism ,Second-language acquisition ,Language and Linguistics ,language.human_language ,Linguistics ,Indonesian ,Formant ,Vowel ,Mid vowel ,language ,second language production ,Language education ,second language acquisition ,business - Abstract
Several studies have documented how first language (L1) vowel systems play an important role in the vowel production of a second language (L2). L2 learners of Western languages who exhibit a smaller L1 vowel system are predicted to struggle with producing L2 vowels. However, there remains a paucity of evidence on how the L1 vowel system of non-Western languages interferes with L2 vowel production In this case, the focus is specifically on Javanese and Sundanese, two of the most widely spoken Indonesian local languages. This present study investigated how the six Javanese vowels and the seven Sundanese vowels influence the production of ten English vowels. In this experiment, 40 speakers, Javanese, Sundanese, and 10 native English speakers, participated in the production task. Spectral dimensions, including first (F1) and second formant (F2) frequencies, were analysed acoustically. According to the Speech Learning Model, Javanese and Sundanese speakers should have trouble producing similar vowels such as (/ I , ɛ, ʊ/) and should not exhibit greater L2 differences with new vowels such as (/i:, ae, ɑː, ɔ:, u:, ʌ, ɜ:/). Indeed, the results demonstrated that the Javanese speakers did have different F1 and F2 values with the English vowels (/i:, ae, ɑː, ɔ:, u:, ʌ, ɜ:/) and the Sundanese speakers produced different F1 and F2 values for vowels (/ae, ɑː, ɔ:/) when compared to the English native speakers. Interestingly, though vowels (/ I , ʊ/) were considered to be similar vowels in the L1 vowel system, the Javanese and Sundanese speakers also showed differences in the formant structure. The vowel space area in the productions by Javanese and Sundanese speakers was slightly smaller than that of the native English speakers. The present study is expected to serve as a basis for future studies and provide the patterns of English vowels produced by Javanese and Sundanese learners of English. Keywords: phonetics; language teaching; bilingualism; second language production; second language acquisition DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2016-2203-10 more...
- Published
- 2016
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33. Solving the problem of double negation is not impossible: electrophysiological evidence for the cohesive function of sentential negation
- Author
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Arie Verhagen, Kim Ouwehand, Jurriaan Witteman, Niels O. Schiller, Guido P. H. Band, L. van Lenteren, and Educational and Developmental Psychology
- Subjects
Linguistics and Language ,Logical equivalence ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Linguistics ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Negation ,Double negation ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Function (engineering) ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Word (computer architecture) ,Natural language ,Coherence (linguistics) ,Sentence ,media_common ,Mathematics - Abstract
In natural languages, two negating elements that cancel each other out (as in not impossible) are logically equivalent to the non-negated word form (in this case, possible). It has been proposed that the function of sentential double negation is to create coherence between sentences containing opposing information. Thus, not impossible is functionally different from possible. The present ERP study tested this hypothesis in Dutch. Native speakers read sentences in which evoked negative expectations are cancelled by a second sentence including either a double negation or the corresponding non-negated word form. Results showed that non-negated word forms, such as possible, elicited a larger N400 effect than double negations, such as not impossible. We suggest that canceling out a negative expectation by a double negation compared to the non-negated word form, makes it easier for the reader to integrate the two sentences semantically and connect them to the present discourse. more...
- Published
- 2016
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34. Plural dominance and the production of determiner-noun phrases in French
- Author
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Solene Hameau, F.-Xavier Alario, Niels O. Schiller, Elisabeth Beyersmann, Britta Biedermann, Antje Lorenz, Laboratoire de psychologie cognitive (LPC), Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Curtin University [Perth], Planning and Transport Research Centre (PATREC), Universiteit Leiden, Octogone Unité de Recherche Interdisciplinaire (Octogone), Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès (UT2J), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT), Humboldt University Of Berlin, ANR-16-CONV-0002,ILCB,ILCB: Institute of Language Communication and the Brain(2016), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Aix Marseille Université (AMU), Universiteit Leiden [Leiden], and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin more...
- Subjects
Spoken word ,French ,Social Sciences ,lcsh:Medicine ,[SHS.PSY]Humanities and Social Sciences/Psychology ,Phonological word ,German ,0302 clinical medicine ,Nickel ,plural dominance ,Psychology ,Determiner ,lcsh:Science ,Language ,Grammar ,Morphology (Linguistics) ,Multidisciplinary ,[SDV.NEU.PC]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC]/Psychology and behavior ,05 social sciences ,[SDV.NEU.SC]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC]/Cognitive Sciences ,Syllables ,Linguistics ,Semantics ,Chemistry ,Reading aloud ,Physical Sciences ,language ,Research Article ,Chemical Elements ,speech production ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,determiners ,Phonology ,050105 experimental psychology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Phonetics ,Noun ,Reaction Time ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Plural ,Verbal Behavior ,lcsh:R ,Cognitive Psychology ,Biology and Life Sciences ,Phonemes ,language.human_language ,Noun phrase ,Reading ,Cognitive Science ,lcsh:Q ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Neuroscience - Abstract
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, partici- pants were instructed to produce determiner-noun phrases in response to singular and plu- ral 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. more...
- Published
- 2018
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35. Lexico-syntactic features are activated but not selected in bare noun production: Electrophysiological evidence from overt picture naming
- Author
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Niels O. Schiller, Man Wang, and Yiya Chen
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,computer.software_genre ,Mandarin Chinese ,050105 experimental psychology ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Noun ,Classifier (linguistics) ,Reaction Time ,Selection (linguistics) ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Evoked Potentials ,Language ,computer.programming_language ,Grammatical gender ,Psycholinguistics ,Verbal Behavior ,business.industry ,05 social sciences ,Electroencephalography ,language.human_language ,Feature (linguistics) ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,language ,Female ,Lexico ,Affect (linguistics) ,Artificial intelligence ,Psychology ,business ,computer ,Photic Stimulation ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Natural language processing - Abstract
To produce a word, speakers need to retrieve the lexico-syntactic representation of the word and encode the phonological form for articulation. It is not precisely known yet if a word's syntactic features (e.g., number, gender, etc.) are automatically activated and selected in bare noun production. Cubelli, Lotto, Paolieri, Girelli, and Job (2005) proposed that only in languages that have a complex morphological structure (e.g., Italian), the selection of grammatical gender is required. In languages with a relatively simpler morphological structure, the selection of grammatical gender is by-passed. Here, we investigated this issue further by employing a language with an extremely simple morphological structure, i.e., Mandarin Chinese. Using the picture-word interference paradigm, we manipulated the congruency of the lexico-syntactic classifier feature (comparable to grammatical gender) between the target picture and the superimposed distractor word. We measured participants' naming latencies and their electroencephalogram (EEG). As a result, relative to the classifier-congruent condition, classifier incongruency elicited a stronger N400 effect in the ERP analyses, suggesting the automatic activation of lexico-syntactic features in bare noun production. However, classifier congruency did not affect naming latencies, suggesting that the lexico-syntactic feature is not selected in bare noun naming when it is irrelevant for production. more...
- Published
- 2018
36. Do Persian native speakers prosodically mark wh-in-situ questions?
- Author
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Niels O. Schiller, Zohreh Shiamizadeh, and Johanneke Caspers
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,post-wh part ,050101 languages & linguistics ,Linguistics and Language ,Sound Spectrography ,prosodic correlates ,Sociology and Political Science ,Voice Quality ,wh-in-situ questions ,pre-wh part ,Persian ,speech perception ,Language and Linguistics ,Speech Acoustics ,030507 speech-language pathology & audiology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Speech and Hearing ,Young Adult ,Speech Production Measurement ,Phonetics ,Encoding (semiotics) ,Humans ,wh-in-situ ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Association (psychology) ,Prosody ,psycholinguistics ,experimental linguistics ,06 humanities and the arts ,General Medicine ,Articles ,Pragmatics ,Interrogative ,language.human_language ,Linguistics ,Feature (linguistics) ,language ,Female ,0305 other medical science ,Psychology ,Sentence - Abstract
It has been shown that prosody contributes to the contrast between declarativity and interro- gativity, 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. more...
- Published
- 2018
37. (Pushing) the Limits of Neuroplasticity Induced by Adult Language Acquisition
- Author
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Maria Carmen Parafita Couto, Yiya Chen, Patrick C. M. Wong, Leticia Pablos-Robles, Jurriaan Witteman, and Niels O. Schiller
- Subjects
Neuroplasticity ,Language acquisition ,Psychology ,Neuroscience ,Neuroscience of multilingualism - Published
- 2018
- Full Text
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38. Learning foreign-language sounds in adulthood: Listening, speaking, and individual differences
- Author
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Lisette Jager, Jurriaan Witteman, James M. McQueen, Peter Desain, Niels O. Schiller, and Jana Krutwig
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Psycholinguistics ,Acoustics and Ultrasonics ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Foreign language ,Contrast (statistics) ,Mismatch negativity ,Cognitive artificial intelligence ,Pronunciation ,Audiology ,Test (assessment) ,Language in Interaction ,Brain Networks and Neuronal Communication [DI-BCB_DCC_Theme 4] ,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) ,Perception ,medicine ,Active listening ,Language and Communication [DI-BCB_DCC_Theme 1] ,Psychology ,Oddball paradigm ,media_common - Abstract
Adult native Dutch speakers tend to have difficulty learning the English /ae/-/ɛ/ contrast because both English vowels can be assimilated to Dutch /e/. Two experiments examined how this contrast is acquired by Dutch adults and the relationship between perception and production in this process. In Experiment 1, a four-day perceptual training protocol on the /ae/-/e/ contrast was combined with related or unrelated production practice (participants said the target word or a phonologically unrelated word after each perceptual decision). There was improvement over the four days in perception and production, but no effect of type of production practice. Perceptual training can thus boost production learning even when participants have to produce the new vowels. Some individuals, however, are more successful in acquiring foreign sounds. In Experiment 2, Dutch students were followed longitudinally over their first year studying English at university. Preliminary results indicate that, in a passive oddball paradigm testing for a MisMatch Negativity (MMN) effect, students could discriminate English /ae/ from English /e/ already at initial test, but Dutch /ɛ/ from English /ɛ/ only at final test. We will ask whether students who show a larger increase in MMN over time improve more in pronunciation of /ae/ and /e/. more...
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- 2018
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39. When is a wh-in-situ question identified in standard Persian?
- Author
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Zohreh Shiamizadeh, Johanneke Caspers, and Niels O. Schiller
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060201 languages & linguistics ,Linguistics and Language ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Syntactic ambiguity ,Intonation (linguistics) ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Context (language use) ,Cognition ,06 humanities and the arts ,Ambiguity ,Speech processing ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Linguistics ,0602 languages and literature ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Prosody ,Psychology ,Sentence ,media_common - Abstract
Previous literature demonstrated the influential role of prediction in processing speech [Brazil, 1981. The place of intonation in a discourse model. In C. Malcolm & M. Montgomery (Eds.), Studies in discourse analysis (pp. 146–157). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Grosjean, 1983. How long is the sentence? Prediction and prosody in the on-line processing of language. Linguistics, 21, 501–529, 1996a. Using prosody to predict the end of sentences in English and French: Normal and brain damaged subjects. Language and Cognitive Processes, 11, 107–134; Snedeker & Trueswell, 2003. Using prosody to avoid ambiguity: Effects of speaker awareness and referential context. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 103–130], and of prosody in predicting the eventual syntactic structure of ambiguous sentences [e.g. Snedeker & Trueswell, 2003. Using prosody to avoid ambiguity: Effects of speaker awareness and referential context. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 103–130]. Wh-in-situ questions contain temporary syntactic ambiguity. One of the languages characterised by wh-in-situ questions is Persian. The current research adopted the gating paradigm [Grosjean, 1980. Spoken word recognition processes and the gating paradigm. Perception and Psychophysics, 28, 267–283] to investigate when distinctive prosodic cues of the pre-wh part enable correct identification of wh-in-situ questions in Persian. A perception experiment was designed in which gated stimuli were played to Persian native speakers in a forced-choice sentence identification task. In line with our expectation, correct identification responses were given from the beginning of the sentence. The result is discussed in the context of proposals regarding the need to integrate prosody and prediction into models of language and speech processing [Beach, 1991. The interpretation of prosodic patterns at points of syntactic structure ambiguity: Evidence for cue trading relations. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 644–663; Grosjean, 1983. How long is the sentence? Prediction and prosody in the on-line processing of language. Linguistics, 21, 501–529, 1996a. Using prosody to predict the end of sentences in English and French: Normal and brain damaged subjects. Language and Cognitive Processes, 11, 107–134]. more...
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- 2018
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40. Neural oscillatory mechanisms during novel grammar learning underlying language analytical abilities
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Ernesto Pereda, Niels O. Schiller, Olga Kepinska, and Johanneke Caspers
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Adult ,Male ,Linguistics and Language ,Adolescent ,Artificial grammar learning ,Process (engineering) ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Multilingualism ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Bivariate analysis ,Electroencephalography ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Learning effect ,Grammar learning ,Task (project management) ,Young Adult ,03 medical and health sciences ,Speech and Hearing ,0302 clinical medicine ,medicine ,Humans ,Learning ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Brain Mapping ,Communication ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,business.industry ,05 social sciences ,Brain ,Linguistics ,Phase synchronization ,Female ,Psychology ,business ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
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. more...
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- 2017
41. The Role of Prosody in the Identification of Persian Sentence Types: Declarative or Wh-question?
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Zohreh Shiamizadeh, Johanneke Caspers, and Niels O. Schiller
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Linguistics and Language ,business.industry ,05 social sciences ,computer.software_genre ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Linguistics ,language.human_language ,030507 speech-language pathology & audiology ,03 medical and health sciences ,language ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Identification (biology) ,Artificial intelligence ,0305 other medical science ,Prosody ,business ,Psychology ,computer ,Sentence ,Natural language processing ,Persian - Abstract
It has been reported that prosody contributes to the identification of utterances which lack lexico-syntactic indicators of interrogativity but do have characteristic prosodic correlates (e.g. Vion and Colas 2006. Pitch cues for the recognition of yes-no questions in French. Journal of Psycholinguistics Research 35. 427–445). In Persian wh-in-situ questions, the interrogativity device (the wh-phrase) does not move to the sentence-initial position, and the pre-wh part is characterized by specific prosodic correlates (Shiamizadeh et al. 2016. Do Persian native speakers prosodically mark wh-in-situ questions? Manuscript submitted for publication). The current experiment investigates the role of prosody in the perception of Persian wh-in-situ questions as opposed to declaratives. To this end, an experiment was designed in which Persian native speakers were asked to choose the correct sentence type after hearing only the pre-wh part of a sentence. We hypothesized that prosody guides perception of wh-in-situ questions independent of wh-phrase type. The results of the experiment corroborate our hypothesis. The outcome is discussed in terms of Ohala´s frequency code, and Bolinger´s claim about the universal dichotomous association between relaxation and declarativity on the one hand and tension and interrogativity on the other hand. more...
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- 2017
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42. The perisylvian language network and language analytical abilities
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Olga Kepinska, Niels O. Schiller, Eleanor M. Dutton, Egbert A. J. F. Lakke, and Johanneke Caspers
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Left and right ,Adult ,Male ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Multilingualism ,050105 experimental psychology ,White matter ,03 medical and health sciences ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,Young Adult ,0302 clinical medicine ,Neural Pathways ,medicine ,Arcuate fasciculus ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Brain Mapping ,05 social sciences ,Brain ,Language acquisition ,Linear discriminant analysis ,Second-language acquisition ,Posterior segment of eyeball ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Diffusion Tensor Imaging ,Female ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Cognitive psychology ,Tractography - Abstract
Aiming at exploring the brain’s structural organisation underlying successful second language learning, we investigate the anatomy of the perisylvian language network in a group of healthy adults, consisting of participants with high and average language analytical abilities. Utilising deterministic tractography, six tracts per participant (left and right long direct segment, left and right indirect anterior segment and left and right indirect posterior segment) were virtually dissected and measurements pertaining to their microstructural organisation were collected. Our results obtained by means of linear discriminant analysis pointed to mean diffusivity (MD) values of three tracts (right anterior, left long and left anterior segments) as best discriminating between the two groups. By far the highest coefficient was obtained for the MD values of the right anterior segment, pointing to the role of the right white matter fronto-parietal connectivity for superior language learning abilities. The results imply the importance of attentional processes and reasoning abilities for successful L2 acquisition, and support previous findings concerning right-hemispheric involvement in language learning. more...
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- 2017
43. When speaker identity is unavoidable: Neural processing of speaker identity cues in natural speech
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Niels O. Schiller, Alba Tuninetti, Paola Escudero, Kateřina Chládková, Varghese Peter, and ACLC (FGw)
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Adult ,Male ,Linguistics and Language ,Speech perception ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,First language ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Speech recognition ,Native vs nonnative ,Mismatch negativity ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,03 medical and health sciences ,Speech and Hearing ,Young Adult ,0302 clinical medicine ,Rule-based machine translation ,Phonetics ,Perception ,Humans ,Speech ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Oddball paradigm ,media_common ,Communication ,MMN ,Speech sound ,business.industry ,05 social sciences ,Linguistics ,Recognition, Psychology ,Acoustics ,Normalization ,Neural processing ,Speech Perception ,Female ,Cues ,Psychology ,business ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
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 percep- tion 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 pro- cessing, listeners are indeed sensitive to changes in fundamental frequency in natural speech tokens. more...
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- 2017
44. Dual activation of word stress from orthography
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Amanda Post da Silveira, Johanneke Caspers, Niels O. Schiller, and Vincent J. van Heuven
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Linguistics and Language ,Speech production ,Communication ,business.industry ,Phonology ,Language and Linguistics ,Linguistics ,Stress (linguistics) ,Cognate ,Syllable ,Association (psychology) ,Psychology ,business ,Orthography ,Word (group theory) - Abstract
Studies in bilingualism have shown that words activate form-similar neighbors in both first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Accordingly, we hypothesized that the degree of form similarity between L1–L2 word pairs causes a proportional amount of prosodic transfer in L2 speech production. Thus, cognate pairs L1–L2 which bear lexical stress in the same syllable position should be facilitated in L2 production, while cognates with stress on mismatching positions L1–L2 should be inhibited. The results of a speeded word naming task with English L2 speakers showed facilitation in production of cognate words overall. Concerning word stress in L1–L2, an opposite effect was found between 2- and 3-syllable cognate words, while no effect was found for non-cognates. The effects found for cognate words correlate with form similarity and L2 lexical frequency values, corroborating the hypotheses that lexical activation in L2 is non-selective and that the bilingual lexicon is built in association between L1 and L2 at multiple levels of linguistic representation. more...
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- 2014
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45. The nature of hemispheric specialization for prosody perception
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Jurriaan Witteman, Katharina Sophia Goerlich-Dobre, Niels O. Schiller, André Aleman, Vincent J. van Heuven, Sander Martens, Clinical Neuropsychology, Interdisciplinary Centre Psychopathology and Emotion regulation (ICPE), and Perceptual and Cognitive Neuroscience (PCN) more...
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Adult ,Male ,Adolescent ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Emotions ,EAR ADVANTAGE ,EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS ,Prosody ,Linguistic ,Brain mapping ,Vocabulary ,Lateralization of brain function ,Dichotic Listening Tests ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,Young Adult ,Event-related potential ,Perception ,Specialization (functional) ,Reaction Time ,EMOTION ,Humans ,BRAIN ,METAANALYSIS ,media_common ,Analysis of Variance ,Brain Mapping ,Lateralization ,IDENTIFICATION ,Dichotic listening ,Electroencephalography ,Linguistics ,Dominance, Ocular ,INTERSTIMULUS-INTERVAL ,Emotional prosody ,Acoustic Stimulation ,STIMULI ,Evoked Potentials, Auditory ,TASK ,Female ,Emotional ,Psychology ,ERP ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Recent evidence suggests a relative right-hemispheric specialization for emotional prosody perception, whereas linguistic prosody perception is under bilateral control. It is still unknown, however, how the hemispheric specialization for prosody perception might arise. Two main hypotheses have been put forward. Cue-dependent hypotheses, on the one hand, propose that hemispheric specialization is driven by specialization for the non-prosody-specific processing of acoustic cues. The functional lateralization hypothesis, on the other hand, proposes that hemispheric specialization is dependent on the communicative function of prosody, with emotional and linguistic prosody processing being lateralized to the right and left hemispheres, respectively. In the present study, the functional lateralization hypothesis of prosody perception was systematically tested by instructing one group of participants to evaluate the emotional prosody, and another group the linguistic prosody dimension of bidimensional prosodic stimuli in a dichotic-listening paradigm, while event-related potentials were recorded. The results showed that the right-ear advantage was associated with decreased latencies for an early negativity in the contralateral hemisphere. No evidence was found for functional lateralization. These findings suggest that functional lateralization effects for prosody perception are small and support the structural model of dichotic listening. more...
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- 2014
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46. Constructing initial phonology in Mandarin Chinese: Syllabic or subsyllabic? A masked priming investigation
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Niels O. Schiller, Jun Lai, Katsuo Tamaoka, Rinus G. Verdonschot, and Feng Chen
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Speech production ,Language production ,language ,Phonology ,Syllabic verse ,Syllable ,Psychology ,Mandarin Chinese ,Priming (psychology) ,General Psychology ,Psycholinguistics ,language.human_language ,Linguistics - Abstract
Recent research has put forward the idea that Chinese speech production is governed by the syllable as the fundamental phonological unit. However, it may be that onset priming might be more difficult to obtain in Mandarin Chinese. Therefore, in this study, the degree of overlap between prime and target was increased from C to CV (i.e., extending beyond the phoneme) as well as whether primes and targets had an overlapping structure (CV vs. CVN). Subsyllabic priming effects were found (i.e., onset + vowel overlap but not purely onset overlap), contrasting with the claim that the syllable is the compulsory building block in the initial construction of Mandarin Chinese phonology. more...
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- 2014
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47. Multi-level processing of phonetic variants in speech production and visual word processing: evidence from Mandarin lexical tones
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Yiya Chen, Niels O. Schiller, and Jessie S. Nixon
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Visual word processing ,Linguistics and Language ,Speech production ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Speech recognition ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Mandarin Chinese ,Language and Linguistics ,Allophone ,language.human_language ,Sandhi ,Tone (musical instrument) ,language ,Control (linguistics) ,Psychology ,Word production - Abstract
Two picture–word interference experiments provide new evidence on the nature of phonological processing in speech production and visual word processing. In both experiments, responses were significantly faster either when distractor and target matched in tone category, but had different overt realisations (toneme condition) or when target and distractor matched in overt realisation, but mismatched in tone category (contour condition). Tone 3 sandhi is an allophone of Beijing Mandarin Tone 3 (T3). Its contour is similar to another tone, Tone 2. In Experiment 1, sandhi picture naming was faster with contour (Tone 2) and toneme (low Tone 3) distractors, compared to control distractors. This indicates both category and context-specific representations are activated in sandhi word production. In Experiment 2, both contour (Tone 2) and toneme (low Tone 3) picture naming was facilitated by visually presented sandhi distractors, compared to controls, evidence that category and context-specific instantiated repres... more...
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- 2014
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48. The effect of spectral smearing on the identification of pureF0intonation contours in vocoder simulations of cochlear implants
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Johan H. M. Frijns, Daan J. van de Velde, Vincent J. van Heuven, Niels O. Schiller, and Giorgos Dritsakis
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Adult ,Male ,Speech perception ,Phrase ,Adolescent ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Acoustics ,Speech recognition ,Speech Acoustics ,Pitch Discrimination ,Young Adult ,Speech and Hearing ,Cochlear implant ,Intonation (music) ,medicine ,Octave ,Humans ,Netherlands ,Mathematics ,Noise ,Identification (information) ,Cochlear Implants ,Otorhinolaryngology ,Filter (video) ,Speech Discrimination Tests ,Speech Perception ,Audiometry, Pure-Tone ,Female - Abstract
Performance of cochlear implant (CI) users on linguistic intonation recognition is poorer than that of normal-hearing listeners, due to the limited spectral detail provided by the implant. A higher spectral resolution is provided by narrow rather than by broad filter slopes. The corresponding effect of the filter slope on the identification of linguistic intonation conveyed by pitch movements alone was tested using vocoder simulations.Re-synthesized intonation variants of naturally produced phrases were processed by a 15-channel noise vocoder using a narrow (40 dB/octave) and a broad (20 dB/octave) filter slope. There were three different intonation patterns (rise/fall/rise-fall), differentiated purely by pitch and each associated to a different meaning. In both slope conditions as well as a condition with unprocessed stimuli, 24 normally hearing Dutch adults listened to a phrase, indicating which of two meanings was associated to it (i.e. a counterbalanced selection of two of the three contours).As expected, performance for the unprocessed stimuli was better than for the vocoded stimuli. No overall difference between the filter conditions was found.These results are taken to indicate that neither the narrow (20 dB/octave) nor the shallow (40 dB/octave) slope provide enough spectral detail to identify pure F(0) intonation contours. For users of a certain class of CIs, results could imply that their intonation perception would not benefit from steeper slopes. For them, perception of pitch movements in language requires more extreme filter slopes, more electrodes, and/or additional (phonetic/contextual) cues. more...
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- 2014
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49. Blunted feelings: Alexithymia is associated with a diminished neural response to speech prosody
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Jurriaan Witteman, André Aleman, Niels O. Schiller, Vincent J. van Heuven, Katharina Sophia Goerlich-Dobre, Sander Martens, Clinical Neuropsychology, Interdisciplinary Centre Psychopathology and Emotion regulation (ICPE), and Perceptual and Cognitive Neuroscience (PCN) more...
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Male ,Speech perception ,FACIAL EXPRESSIONS ,Brain activity and meditation ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Emotions ,Inferior frontal gyrus ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,Speech Acoustics ,Judgment ,Young Adult ,Superior temporal gyrus ,inferior frontal gyrus ,Alexithymia ,medicine ,Humans ,Affective Symptoms ,Prosody ,Psychiatric Status Rating Scales ,Brain Mapping ,PERSONALITY ,PERCEPTION ,Facial expression ,QUANTITATIVE METAANALYSIS ,RECOGNITION ,ATTENTION ,Brain ,Original Articles ,amygdala ,General Medicine ,medicine.disease ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,superior temporal gyrus ,Emotional prosody ,EMOTIONAL PROSODY ,Speech Perception ,Female ,INTERPERSONAL PROBLEMS ,alexithymia ,Psychology ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
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. more...
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- 2013
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50. Different influences of the native language of a listener on speaker recognition
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Niels O. Schiller and O. Koester
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German ,Linguistics and Language ,Speech recognition ,First language ,language ,Speaker identification ,Phonetics ,Speaker recognition ,Psychology ,Law ,language.human_language ,Linguistics - Abstract
In forensic phonetics, lay or expert witnesses might be confronted with voice samples for auditory evaluation from a language they do not understand. In speaker identification experiments, it has been shown that knowledge of the target language affects recognition results. Koster et al. (1995) showed that German listeners and English listeners with a knowledge of German identified a German voice better than English listeners without knowledge of German. Replicating the same experiment with Spanish and Chinese listeners, the results of this study show that (a) Spanish and Chinese listeners with knowledge of German obtain significantly better recognition results than their compatriots with no knowledge of the target language, and that (b) Spanish and Chinese listeners with knowledge of German perform significantly worse than native Germans and English listeners with a knowledge of German. No clear evidence was found that the typological difference between the native language of the listener and the target language influenced recognition performance. more...
- Published
- 2013
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