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What is the connection between the cultural evolution of a language and the rapid processing response to that language in the brains of individual learners? In an iterated communication study that was conducted previously, participants were asked to communicate temporal concepts such as "tomorrow," "day after," "year," and "past" using vertical movements recorded on a touch screen. Over time, participants developed simple artificial 'languages' that used space metaphorically to communicate in nuanced ways about time. Some conventions appeared rapidly and universally (e.g., using larger vertical movements to convey greater temporal durations). Other conventions required extensive social interaction and exhibited idiosyncratic variation (e.g., using vertical location to convey past or future). Here we investigate whether the brain's response during acquisition of such a language reflects the process by which the language's conventions originally evolved. We recorded participants' EEG as they learned one of these artificial space-time languages. Overall, the brain response to this artificial communication system was language-like, with, for instance, violations to the system's conventions eliciting an N400-like component. Over the course of learning, participants' brain responses developed in ways that paralleled the process by which the language had originally evolved, with early neural sensitivity to violations of a rapidly-evolving universal convention, and slowly developing neural sensitivity to an idiosyncratic convention that required slow social negotiation to emerge. This study opens up exciting avenues of future work to disentangle how neural biases influence learning and transmission in the emergence of structure in language.

People talk about time using the language of space. The future is "ahead." Endless events are "long." Cross-linguistically, these conventions exhibit both universality and striking diversity. These mappings in language, therefore, might originate from a combination of shared cognitive biases and sociocultural processes. To investigate the mechanisms involved in the emergence of space-time mappings - and linguistic metaphor more broadly - we conducted an experiment in which participants had to communicate about abstract temporal concepts using entirely spatial signals. The spatial signals developed by one pair of participants were then transmitted to the next pair, creating chains of multiple generations. Together, these processes of interaction and transmission sometimes generated fully systematic, compositional systems - although sometimes also generated systems that lacked structure entirely. The deciding factor may have been how people responded to errors - with incremental adjustments or radical reconfiguration. Systematic metaphors, therefore, may emerge from a heterogeneous mix of mechanisms.

When asked to convey temporal concepts such as ‘yesterday’and ‘tomorrow’ via movements of a dot on a vertical bar,American undergraduates utilize analogical mappingsbetween spatial and temporal concepts. Previous work hasrevealed two different strategies, hypothesized to requirediffering amounts of artificial language exposure to learn.Different pairs of participants, when interacting about thesetime concepts, all settled on the same association betweenspatial magnitude and temporal duration, with largermovements used to convey temporal intervals of greaterduration. However, the association between particular spatiallocations and temporal concepts such as ‘past’ and ‘future’,elicited much more arbitrary solutions, where the mappingsdiffered across pairs of participants. These findings suggestedthat the duration mapping might be driven by mostly shared,initial cognitive biases, while contrasting mappings forpast/future result more clearly from extensive linguisticinteraction. Here we tested whether the brain respondsdifferently to duration mappings as compared to directionmappings by recording participants’ EEG as they learn amini-language that includes both kinds. ERPs time locked toEnglish words elicited larger amplitude N400 and P600 whenthey did not match the preceding signal than when they didmatch. The P600 results were larger and more robust for theduration than the direction stimuli, suggesting participantswere more sensitive to violations of the duration mappingscheme. These data support our hypothesis that people have acognitive bias for the duration mappings that supports theirearly emergence in the development of a semiotic system.

Human communication has a remarkable capacity todescribe events that occurred elsewhere and at othertimes. In particular, when describing complex narratives,speakers must communicate temporal structure using amixture of words (e.g., “after”), gestures (e.g., pointingrightward for a later event), and discourse structure (e.g.,mentioning earlier events first). How do listenersintegrate these sources of temporal information to makesense of complex narratives? In two experiments, wesystematically manipulated gesture, speech, and order-of-mention to investigate their respective impacts oncomprehension of temporal structure. Gesture had asignificant effect on interpretations of temporal order.This influence of gesture, however, was weaker than theinfluence of both speech and order-of-mention. Indeed,in some cases, order-of-mention trumped explicitdescriptions in speech; for instance, if ‘earlier’ eventswere mentioned second, they were sometimes thought tohave occurred second. Listeners integrate multiplesources of information to interpret what happened when.

We test the robustness of American college students’ mentaltimeline to dual tasks that have interfered with spatial andverbal reasoning in prior work. We focus on the left-right axisfor representing sequences of events. We test Americancollege students, who read from left to right. We test forautomatic space-time mappings using two established space-time association tasks. We find that their tendency toassociate earlier events with the left side of space and laterevents with the right remains under conditions of visuospatialand verbal interference. We find this both when participantsmade time judgments about linguistic and non-linguisticstimuli. We discuss the relationship between these results andthose obtained for mental timelines that result from learningnew metaphors in language (Hendricks & Boroditsky, 2015),and the effects of the same interference tasks on number tasks(mental number-line and counting; van Dijck et al., 2009;Frank et al., 2012).

Humans spatialize time. This occurs within individual mindsand also in larger, shared cultural systems like language.Understanding the origins of space-time mappings requiresanalyses at multiple levels, from initial individual biases tocultural evolution. Here we present a laboratory experimentthat simulates the cultural emergence of space-timemappings. Dyads had to communicate about temporalconcepts using only a novel, spatial signaling device. Overthe course of their interactions, participants rapidlyestablished semiotic systems that mapped systematicallybetween time and space. These semiotic systems exhibited anumber of similarities, but also striking idiosyncrasies. Byforegrounding the interaction of mechanisms that operate ondisparate timescales, laboratory experiments can shed light onthe commonalities and variety found in space-time mappingsin languages around the world.

Reasoning about bedrock abstract concepts such as time, number, and valence relies on spatial metaphor and often on multiple spatial metaphors for a single concept. Previous research has documented, for instance, both future-in-front and future-to-right metaphors for time in English speakers. It is often assumed that these metaphors, which appear to have distinct experiential bases, remain distinct in online temporal reasoning. In two studies we demonstrate that, contra this assumption, people systematically combine these metaphors. Evidence for this combination was found in both directly elicited (Study 1) and spontaneous co-speech (Study 2) gestures about time. These results provide first support for the hypothesis that the metaphorical representation of time, and perhaps other abstract domains as well, involves the continuous co-activation of multiple metaphors rather than the selection of only one.

The genetic control of adult plant resistance to Stagonospora nodorum blotch (SNB) is complex, consisting of genes with minor effects interacting in an additive manner. Earlier studies detected quantitative trait loci (QTL) for flag leaf resistance in successive years on chromosomes 1B, 2A, 2D, and 5B using SSR- and DArT-based genetic maps of progeny from the crosses EGA Blanco/Millewa, 6HRWSN125/WAWHT2074, and P92201D5/P91193D1. Similarly, QTL for glume resistance detected in successive years and multiple environments were identified on chromosomes 2D and 4B from genetic maps of P92201D5/P91193D1 and 6HRWSN125/WAWHT2074, respectively. The SSR- and DArT-based genetic maps had an average distance of 6.5, 7.8, and 9.7 cM between marker loci for populations EGA/Millewa, P92201D5/P91193D1, and 6HRWSN125/WAWHT2074, respectively. This study used single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers from the iSelect Infinium 90K genotyping array to fine-map genomic regions harbouring QTL for flag leaf and glume SNB resistance, reducing the average distance between markers to 2.9, 3.3, and 3.4 cM for populations P92201D5/P91193D1, EGA/Millewa, and 6HRWSN125/WAWHT2074, respectively. Increasing the marker density of the genetic maps with SNPs did not identify any new QTL for SNB resistance but discriminated previously identified co-located QTL into separate but closely linked QTL. Key words: Stagonospora nodorum blotch, quantitative trait loci, adult plant resistance, single nucleotide polymorphism. Le controle genetique de la resistance a la septoriose (Stagonospora nodorum blotch, SNB) est complexe et comprend des genes a effets mineurs qui agissent de maniere additive. Des etudes anterieures ont detecte des QTL pour la resistance chez la feuille etendard au cours d'annees successives sur les chromosomes 1B, 2A, 2D et 5B a l'aide de cartes genetiques basees sur des marqueurs SSR et DArT, lesquelles avaient ete produites a partir des croisements EGA Blanco/Millewa, 6HRWSN125/WAWHT2074 et P92201D5/P91193D1. Similairement, des QTL pour la resistance des glumes ont ete detectes sur plusieurs annees et dans de multiples environnements sur les chromosomes 2D et 4B au sein de cartes genetiques pour les croisements P92201D5/P91193D1 et 6HRWSN125/WAWHT2074, respectivement. Les cartes basees sur les marqueurs SSR et DArT presentaient une distance moyenne entre les marqueurs de 6,5, 7,8 et 9,7 cM chez les populations EGA/Millewa, et P92201D5/P91193D1 et 6HRWSN125/WAWHT2074, respectivement. Cette etude a employe les marqueurs mononucleotidiques (SNP) de la puce iSelect Infinium 90K pour cartographier plus finement les regions contenant des QTL pour les deux formes de resistance a la septoriose (feuille etendard et glume) grace a une distance moyenne reduite entre les marqueurs (2,9, 3,3 et 3,4 cM chez les cartes P92201D5/P91193D1, EGA/Millewa et 6HRWSN125/WAWHT2074, respectivement). Cet accroissement de la densite des marqueurs au sein des cartes genetiques a l'aide des SNP n'a pas permis d'identifier de nouveaux QTL pour la resistance a la septoriose, mais a permis de distinguer des QTL proches qui etaient anterieurement consideres comme n'en formant qu'un seul. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles: septoriose, locus de caractere quantitatif, resistance a l'age adulte, polymorphisme mononucleotidique., Introduction Stagonospora nodorum blotch (SNB) is a nercrotophic fungal disease of wheat caused by the pathogen Parastagonospora nodorum (synonyms Stagonospora nodorum, Phaeosphaeria nodorum). Symptoms of infection in adult plants generally [...]

Abstract: The invertase enzyme family is responsible for carbohydrate metabolism in rice, perennial ryegrass, and wheat. Fructan molecules accumulate in cell vacuoles of perennial ryegrass and wheat and are associated [...]