Processing Of Lexical Information Research Articles

Event-Related Potentials Elicited by Phonetic Errors Differentiate Children With Speech Sound Disorder and Typically Developing Peers.

A growing body of research suggests that a deficit in speech perception abilities contributes to the development of speech sound disorder (SSD). However, little work has been done to characterize the neurophysiological processes indexing speech perception deficits in this population. The primary aim of this study was to compare the neural activity underlying speech perception in young children with SSD and with typical development (TD). Twenty-eight children ages 4;1-6;0 (years;months) participated in this study. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while children completed a speech perception task that included phonetic (speech sound) and lexical (meaning) matches and mismatches. Groups were compared on their judgment accuracy for matches and mismatches as well as the mean amplitude of the phonological mapping negativity (PMN) and N400 ERP components. Children with SSD demonstrated lower judgment accuracy across the phonetic and lexical conditions compared to peers with TD. The ERPs elicited by lexical matches and mismatches did not distinguish the groups. However, in the phonetic condition, the SSD group exhibited a more consistent left-lateralized PMN effect and a delayed N400 effect over frontal sites compared to the TD group. These findings provide some of the first evidence of a delay in the neurophysiological processing of phonological information for young children with SSD compared to their peers with TD. This delay was not present for the processing of lexical information, indicating a unique difference between children with SSD and with TD related to speech perception of phonetic errors. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16915579.

Interpreting nonverbal cues to deception in real time.

When questioning the veracity of an utterance, we perceive certain non-linguistic behaviours to indicate that a speaker is being deceptive. Recent work has highlighted that listeners’ associations between speech disfluency and dishonesty are detectable at the earliest stages of reference comprehension, suggesting that the manner of spoken delivery influences pragmatic judgements concurrently with the processing of lexical information. Here, we investigate the integration of a speaker’s gestures into judgements of deception, and ask if and when associations between nonverbal cues and deception emerge. Participants saw and heard a video of a potentially dishonest speaker describe treasure hidden behind an object, while also viewing images of both the named object and a distractor object. Their task was to click on the object behind which they believed the treasure to actually be hidden. Eye and mouse movements were recorded. Experiment 1 investigated listeners’ associations between visual cues and deception, using a variety of static and dynamic cues. Experiment 2 focused on adaptor gestures. We show that a speaker’s nonverbal behaviour can have a rapid and direct influence on listeners’ pragmatic judgements, supporting the idea that communication is fundamentally multimodal.

Hemispheric processing of lexical information in Chinese character recognition and its relationship to reading performance

Hemispheric predominance has been well documented in the visual perception of alphabetic words. However, the hemispheric processing of lexical information in Chinese character recognition and its relationship to reading performance are far from clear. In the divided visual field paradigm, participants were required to judge the orthography, phonology, or semantics of Chinese characters, which were presented randomly in the left or right visual field. The results showed a right visual field/left hemispheric superiority in the phonological judgment task, but no hemispheric advantage in the orthographic or semantic task was found. In addition, reaction times in the right visual field for phonological and semantic tasks were significantly correlated with the reading test score. These results suggest that both hemispheres involved in the orthographic and semantic processing of Chinese characters, and that the left lateralized phonological processing is important for Chinese fluent reading.

Spatiotemporal dynamics of the processing of lexical information in word recognition revealed by intracerebral potentials

Event Abstract Back to Event Spatiotemporal dynamics of the processing of lexical information in word recognition revealed by intracerebral potentials Yi Liu1, Shi Gaofeng2, Gaofeng Shi1, Yuguang Guan3* and Zaizhu Han1* 1 Beijing Normal University, China 2 Beijing Language and Culture University, China 3 Sanbo Brain Hospital, Capital Medical University, China One of the fundamental questions in language neuroscience is how the human brain processes lexical information. A neural network has been found which supports lexical information processing during word recognition (Paul et al., 2015; Lee et al., 2010; Wei et al., 2016). However, the exact temporal and spatial distribution of processing in this brain network is poorly understood. To address this issue, stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) data in 17 Chinese native speakers with epilepsy were collected from 1393 electrodes implanted in the left hemisphere as the patients performed a lexical decision task (including 150 real Chinese characters and 150 Chinese non-characters). We examined when and where the lexical effect (i.e., the difference between non-characters and real characters) appeared in the high gamma-band activity (GBA) (60 HZ and 140 Hz) of SEEG signals. The earliest lexical effect (GBA signal was stronger for non-characters than for real characters; i.e., non-characters > real characters GBA) was observed in the occipital lobe (around 167 ms). Then, the reversed effect (real characters > non-characters GBA) appeared in the superior occipital lobe (around 136 ms), parietal lobe (around 332 ms) and inferior frontal gyrus (around 409 ms). Finally, the lexical effect was again detected in the middle frontal gyrus (around 515 ms). These findings highlight the ventral and dorsal pathways that collaboratively underlie the recognition of lexical information. Acknowledgements This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [81171019] and the Beijing Natural Science Foundation [7182088]. References Hoffman, P. , Lambon Ralph, M. A. , & Woollams, A. M. . (2015). Triangulation of the neurocomputational architecture underpinning reading aloud. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(28), E3719-E3728. Lee, C. Y. , Huang, H. W. , Kuo, W. J. , Tsai, J. L. , & Tzeng, J. L. O. . (2010). Cognitive and neural basis of the consistency and lexicality effects in reading chinese. Journal of Neurolinguistics,23(1), 1-27. Wei, Z. , Xiaojuan, W. , Zhichao, X. , Yanchao, B. , Ping, L. , & Hua, S. . (2016). Neural mechanisms of dorsal and ventral visual regions during text reading. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. Keywords: lexical information, spatiotemporal dynamics, leixcal decision, SEEG, high gamma Conference: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting, Macau, Macao, SAR China, 27 Oct - 29 Oct, 2019. Presentation Type: Poster presentation Topic: Eligible for student award Citation: Liu Y, Gaofeng S, Shi G, Guan Y and Han Z (2019). Spatiotemporal dynamics of the processing of lexical information in word recognition revealed by intracerebral potentials. Front. Hum. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2019.01.00059 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 03 May 2019; Published Online: 09 Oct 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. Yuguang Guan, Sanbo Brain Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100093, China, ygguan2000@163.com Dr. Zaizhu Han, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, zzhhan@bnu.edu.cn Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Yi Liu Shi Gaofeng Gaofeng Shi Yuguang Guan Zaizhu Han Google Yi Liu Shi Gaofeng Gaofeng Shi Yuguang Guan Zaizhu Han Google Scholar Yi Liu Shi Gaofeng Gaofeng Shi Yuguang Guan Zaizhu Han PubMed Yi Liu Shi Gaofeng Gaofeng Shi Yuguang Guan Zaizhu Han Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Optical Mapping of Brain Activation and Connectivity in Occipitotemporal Cortex During Chinese Character Recognition.

In this study, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to examine the brain activation and connectivity in occipitotemporal cortex during Chinese character recognition (CCR). Eighteen healthy participants were recruited to perform a well-designed task with three categories of stimuli (real characters, pseudo characters, and checkerboards). By inspecting the brain activation difference and its relationship with behavioral data, the left laterality during CCR was clearly identified in the Brodmann area (BA) 18 and 19. In addition, our novel findings also demonstrated that the bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG), bilateral BA 19, and left fusiform gyrus were also involved in high-level lexical information processing such as semantic and phonological ones. Meanwhile, by examining functional brain networks, we discovered that the right BA 19 exhibited enhanced brain connectivity. In particular, the connectivity in the right fusiform gyrus, right BA 19, and left STG showed significant correlation with the performance of CCR. Consequently, the combination of fNIRS technique with functional network analysis paves a new avenue for improved understanding of the cognitive mechanism underlying CCR.

A Meta-Analytic Study of the Neural Systems for Auditory Processing of Lexical Tones

The neural systems of lexical tone processing have been studied for many years. However, previous findings have been mixed with regard to the hemispheric specialization for the perception of linguistic pitch patterns in native speakers of tonal language. In this study, we performed two activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses, one on neuroimaging studies of auditory processing of lexical tones in tonal languages (17 studies), and the other on auditory processing of lexical information in non-tonal languages as a control analysis for comparison (15 studies). The lexical tone ALE analysis showed significant brain activations in bilateral inferior prefrontal regions, bilateral superior temporal regions and the right caudate, while the control ALE analysis showed significant cortical activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus and left temporo-parietal regions. However, we failed to obtain significant differences from the contrast analysis between two auditory conditions, which might be caused by the limited number of studies available for comparison. Although the current study lacks evidence to argue for a lexical tone specific activation pattern, our results provide clues and directions for future investigations on this topic, more sophisticated methods are needed to explore this question in more depth as well.

Age-Related Sparing of Parafoveal Lexical Processing

Background/Study Context: This study examined the role of increased adult age in the processing of lexical information presented in foveal and parafoveal areas of the retina (right and left visual fields). Previous research has shown that older adults are able to compensate for age-related changes though a highly practiced skill (Salthouse, 1984, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 345–371). The authors examined if older adults would show a lexical-only parafoveal benefit. Methods: Two experiments were conducted on both younger and older adults. In Experiment 1, participants completed a lexical decision task that presented words in the fovea and parafovea in both visual fields. In Experiment 2, the task was a font discrimination task (nonlexical) with foveal and parafoveal presentation in both visual fields. Results: In Experiment 1, the authors observed word frequency effects for both foveal and right parafoveal presentation locations. This effect was present for both older and younger adults. Experiment 2 was a font discrimination task and there was no right parafoveal advantage for older adults on this task, suggesting that this effect observed in Experiment 1 was lexical in nature due to the highly overlearned nature of word recognition. Conclusion: These results suggest that older adults may compensate for slower encoding time in reading by encoding text to the right of fixation more efficiently than younger adults. This suggests an asymmetrical change in the useful field of view that is lexical in nature.

A computational model explaining language phenomena on Korean visual word recognition

How do we understand the meaning of written word? Until recently, the basic mechanisms underlying visual word recognition have remained controversial. To explore the basic mechanisms underlying the human recognition processes, we propose the computational model of visual word recognition which reflects the theoretically presented linguistic processing mechanisms of Korean’s visual word processing. In applying the computational model, sets of orthographic units, hidden units, context units and semantic units, were constructed. During the training phase, the weight on the connections between the units were modified using the back-propagation learning algorithm. The model using a lexical decision response time was substituted by a cross entropy values. To evaluate the model, we also conducted behavioral experiments to compare the results of the model performance with human performances. The results show that the proposed model closely simulates Korean visual word processing characteristics such as the word frequency effect, the lexical status effect, the word similarity effect and the semantic priming effect. The model suggests that the computational models should be a valuable tool that can explain the lexical information processing characteristics of the Korean visual word recognition.

Age-Related Changes in the Neurophysiology of Language in Adults: Relationship to Regional Cortical Thinning and White Matter Microstructure

Although reading skill remains relatively stable with advancing age in humans, neurophysiological measures suggest potential reductions in efficiency of lexical information processing. It is unclear whether these age-related changes are secondary to decreases in regional cortical thickness and/or microstructure of fiber tracts essential to language. Magnetoencephalography, volumetric MRI, and diffusion tensor imaging were performed in 10 young (18-33 years) and 10 middle-aged (42-64 years) human individuals to evaluate the spatiotemporal dynamics and structural correlates of age-related changes in lexical-semantic processing. Increasing age was associated with reduced activity in left temporal lobe regions from 250 to 350 ms and in left inferior prefrontal cortex from 350 to 450 ms (i.e., N400). Hierarchical regression indicated that age no longer predicted left inferior prefrontal activity after cortical thickness and fractional anisotropy (FA) of the uncinate fasciculus (UF) were considered. Interestingly, FA of the UF was a stronger predictor of the N400 response than cortical thickness. Age-related reductions in left-lateralization of language responses were observed between 250 and 350 ms, and were associated with left temporal thinning and frontotemporal FA reductions. N400 reductions were not associated with poorer task performance. Rather, increasing age was associated with reduction in the left prefrontal N400, which in turn was also associated with slower response time. These results reveal that changes in the neurophysiology of language occur by middle age and appear to be partially mediated by structural brain loss. These neurophysiological changes may reflect an adaptive process that ensues as communication between left perisylvian regions declines.

Deep dysphasia as a phonetic input deficit: Evidence from a single case

Background: The syndrome of deep dysphasia is characterised by an inability to repeat pseudowords and the production of semantic errors in word repetition. Several single case studies revealed that phonological decoding might be outstandingly impaired. Recovery of deep dysphasia has only been illustrated in detail for patient NC (Martin & Saffran, 1992). Dell, Schwartz, Martin, Saffran, and Gagnon (1997) tried to simulate NC's repetition performance in their connectionist lexical activation model, but it did not fit his error pattern as it assumes perfect recognition of auditory input. With admiration, we dedicate this study to John Marshall who is one of the pioneers in discovering the difference between deep and surface processing of lexical information. We would like to thank Gary Dell with whom we discussed many details of the study. We also would like to thank an anonymous reviewer who helped us to revise and to extend the first version of the manuscript. Aims: In this new single case study on recovery of deep dysphasia, we intended to collect further evidence for the assumption that impaired input processing is the crucial cause of the impairment. Moreover, we aimed to explain impairment and psycholinguistic parameter effects in the connectionist semantic‐phonological model (Foygel & Dell, 2000) by adding a phonetic input level. Methods & Procedures: JR's performance was repeatedly assessed in the course of recovery. Errors in naming and repetition were classified according to the taxonomy of Dell et al. (1997). JR's error patterns were simulated in the semantic‐phonological model to determine the naming disorder and to predict word repetition. In addition, we established an error modality analysis to disentangle input and output impairments in repetition. Thus, the source of each error could be subclassified as belonging to either expressive or receptive components of repetition. Outcomes & Results: Initially there was a sharp contrast between severely impaired word and pseudoword repetition and almost unimpaired reading aloud. During recovery, performance in naming and word repetition improved a great deal, while repetition of pseudowords remained impossible. The evolvement of real word repetition was characterised by psycholinguistic parameter effects at different points in time: concreteness before length, before frequency. The connectionist model over‐predicted correct responses in word repetition as for NC. There were only few expressive repetition errors; regarding receptive errors, nonwords and null responses decreased significantly while formal errors became the dominant error type in the course of recovery. Conclusions: The development of psycholinguistic parameter effects, dissociations in performance, the computer simulations, and results from error modality analysis as well as changes of error pattern are ample evidence for the primary decoding disorder in JR. We argue that deep dysphasia can be explained by an impairment of phonetic–phonological connections in an extended version of the connectionist one‐route model of repetition with four rather than three levels of auditory word processing. The improved real word repetition despite persisting failure on pseudowords is accounted for by an increase of both phonetic–phonological and lexical–phonological connection weights.

Effects of talker voice on lexical neighborhood and speech perception

Previous research has shown that the number of words that a syllable is similar to (lexical neighborhood) influences the perception of the syllable and its phonemes. For example, in ‘‘bowth’’ ‘‘powth’’ and ‘‘bows’’ ‘‘pows’’ series, ‘‘bowth’’ is similar to more words than ‘‘powth,’’ while ‘‘pows’’ is similar to more words than ‘‘bows.’’ Listeners report more syllables beginning with /b/ in ‘‘bowth’’ ‘‘powth’’ and more that begin with /p/ in ‘‘bows’’ ‘‘pows.’’ However, with one particular talker, no effects of lexical neighborhood were found. This research focused on two explanations for the lack of neighborhood effects for this talker. One possibility is that the previous method of determining lexical neighborhood is inaccurate for this talker. Alternatively, the time course for phonetic and lexical information processing may be different for this talker. In this research, listeners identified the final consonant in two nonword CVC series: ‘‘faesh’’ ‘‘faech’’ and ‘‘taesh’’ ‘‘taech.’’ With a syllable final target phoneme, lexical neighborhood influences should build up prior to the processing of the target phoneme. Implications of the data for models of word recognition and perception with different talkers will be discussed. [Work supported by NIDCD Grant No. R01DC00219 to SUNY at Buffalo.]

Magneto- und elektroenzephalographische Korrelate der Verarbeitung von visuellen verbalen und nichtverbalen Reizen

A reliable method for the clinically useful assessment of brain structures involved in language processing would be highly desirable. Ideally, the outcome of the diagnostic procedure would show negligible dependence on the current cognitive state of a patient. To approach this goal, we studied brain activational patterns during language processing on a rather basic level, i.e. we examined secondary processing of lexical information when words were visually presented to the subject. This condition was compared to three other experimental conditions requiring the secondary processing of non-lexical and non-verbal information in visual stimuli. The primary task for subjects was target detection. Electric and magnetic brain activity differentiated the experimental conditions starting at about 150 ms after stimulus onset. Amplitudes of components of event-related potentials and fields, as well as the similarity of magnetic field distributions between experimental conditions (as evaluated by cross-correlation) differed significantly between mainly verbal and the non-verbal conditions. This reflects presumably that secondary processing of verbal and non-verbal information in visual stimuli involves different neuroanatomical structures. Attempts to reinforce this result with source analysis techniques failed to reveal systematic effects. Possible reasons might be the inadequacy of the applied distributed source analysis model as well as interindividual variability of neuroanatomical structures involved in the processing of information.

General slowing in semantic priming and word recognition.

Analyses of lexical decision studies revealed that (a) older (O) adults' mean semantic priming effect was 1.44 times that of younger (Y) adults, (b) regression lines describing the relations between older and younger adults' latencies in related (O = 1.54 Y-112 and unrelated conditions (O = 1.50 Y-93) were not significantly different, and (c) that there was a proportional relation between older and younger adults' priming effects (O = 1.48 Y-2). Analyses of word-naming studies yielded similar results. Analyses of delayed pronunciation data (Balota & Duchek, 1988) revealed that word recognition was 1.47 times slower in older adults, whereas older adults' output processes were only 1.26 times slower. Overall, analyses of whole latencies and durations of component processes provide converging evidence for a general slowing factor of approximately 1.5 for lexical information processing.

General slowing in semantic priming and word recognition.

Analyses of lexical decision studies revealed that (a) older (O) adults' mean semantic priming effect was 1.44 times that of younger (Y) adults, (b) regression lines describing the relations between older and younger adults' latencies in related (O = 1.54 Y-112 and unrelated conditions (O = 1.50 Y-93) were not significantly different, and (c) that there was a proportional relation between older and younger adults' priming effects (O = 1.48 Y-2). Analyses of word-naming studies yielded similar results. Analyses of delayed pronunciation data (Balota & Duchek, 1988) revealed that word recognition was 1.47 times slower in older adults, whereas older adults' output processes were only 1.26 times slower. Overall, analyses of whole latencies and durations of component processes provide converging evidence for a general slowing factor of approximately 1.5 for lexical information processing.

Lexical information processing during sentence comprehension

This article reports two experiments, a phoneme monitoring experiment and a sentence completion experiment, conducted with matched materials on subjects drawn from the same population. There are three major conclusions: ( a ) That in the case of ambiguous lexical items, all meanings are retrieved, but following a decision stage only one is transferred to working memory; ( b ) that the two experimental tasks investigated do not tap the same psycholinguistic processes; and ( c ) that there is a lexical retrieval stage operable in both comprehension and production which affects response latencies.