Lexical Processing Research Articles

Intra– and inter–hemispheric network dynamics supporting object recognition and speech production

We built normative brain atlases that animate millisecond-scale intra- and inter-hemispheric white matter-level connectivity dynamics supporting object recognition and speech production. We quantified electrocorticographic modulations during three naming tasks using event-related high-gamma activity from 1,114 nonepileptogenic intracranial electrodes (i.e., non-lesional areas unaffected by epileptiform discharges). Using this electrocorticography data, we visualized functional connectivity modulations defined as significant naming-related high-gamma modulations occurring simultaneously at two sites connected by direct white matter streamlines on diffusion-weighted imaging tractography. Immediately after stimulus onset, intra- and inter-hemispheric functional connectivity enhancements were confined mainly across modality-specific perceptual regions. During response preparation, left intra-hemispheric connectivity enhancements propagated in a posterior-to-anterior direction, involving the left precentral and prefrontal areas. After overt response onset, inter- and intra-hemispheric connectivity enhancements mainly encompassed precentral, postcentral, and superior-temporal (STG) gyri. We found task-specific connectivity enhancements during response preparation as follows. Picture naming enhanced activity along the left arcuate fasciculus between the inferior-temporal and precentral/posterior inferior-frontal (pIFG) gyri. Nonspeech environmental sound naming augmented functional connectivity via the left inferior longitudinal and fronto-occipital fasciculi between the medial-occipital and STG/pIFG. Auditory descriptive naming task enhanced usage of the left frontal U-fibers, involving the middle-frontal gyrus. Taken together, the commonly observed network enhancements include inter-hemispheric connectivity optimizing perceptual processing exerted in each hemisphere, left intra-hemispheric connectivity supporting semantic and lexical processing, and inter-hemispheric connectivity for symmetric oral movements during overt speech. Our atlases improve the currently available models of object recognition and speech production by adding neural dynamics via direct intra- and inter-hemispheric white matter tracts.

Word Structure Tunes Electrophysiological and Hemodynamic Responses in the Frontal Cortex

To date, it is still unclear how word structure might impact lexical processing in the brain for languages with an impoverished system of grammatical morphology such as Chinese. In this study, concurrent electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) recordings were performed to inspect the temporal and spatial brain activities that are related to Chinese word structure (compound vs. derivation vs. non-morphological) effects. A masked priming paradigm was utilized on three lexical conditions (compound constitute priming, derivation constitute priming, and non-morphological priming) to tap Chinese native speakers' structural sensitivity to differing word structures. The compound vs. derivation structure effect was revealed by the behavioral data as well as the temporal and spatial brain activation patterns. In the masked priming task, Chinese derivations exhibited significantly enhanced brain activation in the frontal cortex and involved broader brain networks as compared with lexicalized compounds. The results were interpreted by the differing connection patterns between constitute morphemes within a given word structure from a spreading activation perspective. More importantly, we demonstrated that the Chinese word structure effect showed a distinct brain activation pattern from that of the dual-route mechanism in alphabetic languages. Therefore, this work paved a new avenue for comprehensively understanding the underlying cognitive neural mechanisms associated with Chinese derivations and coordinate compounds.

Moving away from lexicalism in psycho- and neuro-linguistics

In standard models of language production or comprehension, the elements which are retrieved from memory and combined into a syntactic structure are “lemmas” or “lexical items.” Such models implicitly take a “lexicalist” approach, which assumes that lexical items store meaning, syntax, and form together, that syntactic and lexical processes are distinct, and that syntactic structure does not extend below the word level. Across the last several decades, linguistic research examining a typologically diverse set of languages has provided strong evidence against this approach. These findings suggest that syntactic processes apply both above and below the “word” level, and that both meaning and form are partially determined by the syntactic context. This has significant implications for psychological and neurological models of language processing as well as for the way that we understand different types of aphasia and other language disorders. As a consequence of the lexicalist assumptions of these models, many kinds of sentences that speakers produce and comprehend—in a variety of languages, including English—are challenging for them to account for. Here we focus on language production as a case study. In order to move away from lexicalism in psycho- and neuro-linguistics, it is not enough to simply update the syntactic representations of words or phrases; the processing algorithms involved in language production are constrained by the lexicalist representations that they operate on, and thus also need to be reimagined. We provide an overview of the arguments against lexicalism, discuss how lexicalist assumptions are represented in models of language production, and examine the types of phenomena that they struggle to account for as a consequence. We also outline what a non-lexicalist alternative might look like, as a model that does not rely on a lemma representation, but instead represents that knowledge as separate mappings between (a) meaning and syntax and (b) syntax and form, with a single integrated stage for the retrieval and assembly of syntactic structure. By moving away from lexicalist assumptions, this kind of model provides better cross-linguistic coverage and aligns better with contemporary syntactic theory.

"BREF APERCU SUR LE LEXIQUE DE LA PANDEMIE DE COVID-19 "

Based on a corpus drawn both from the database available on the official sites of the European Union and the French electronic press, the present paper aims to identify new lexemes recorded in language as a result of the global health crisis. In many cases, the appearance of a new word proves the strong creativity of the linguistic system through various lexical and grammatical processes.

ОСОБЛИВОСТІ ВИВЧЕННЯ ЕЛЕМЕНТІВ ЛЕКСИКОЛОГІЇ В ПОЧАТКОВІЙ ШКОЛІ В АСПЕКТІ КОМУНІКАТИВНО-ДІЯЛЬНІСНОГО ПІДХОДУ

У статті йдеться про важливість вивчення елементів лексикології на уроках української мови в початкових класах, звернуто увагу на особливості опрацювання лексичного матеріалу молодшими школярами; підкреслено необхідність здійснення комунікативно-діяльнісного підходу до опрацювання учнями початкової школи основних понять з лексикології; наголошено на значущості вивчення елементів лексикології як таких, що сприяють збагаченню словникового запасу молодших школярів, увиразнюють мовлення, дозволяють висловлювати власну думку більш зрозуміло й переконливо.

Noise Modulates Crosslinguistic Effects on Second-Language Auditory Word Recognition.

This study investigates whether crosslinguistic effects on auditory word recognition are modulated by the quality of the auditory signal (clear and noisy). In an online experiment, a group of Spanish-English bilingual listeners performed an auditory lexical decision task, in their second language, English. Words and pseudowords were either presented in the clear or were embedded in white auditory noise. Target words were varied in the degree to which they overlapped in their phonological form with their translation equivalents and were categorized according to their overlap as cognates (form and meaning) or noncognates (meaning only). In order to test for effects of crosslinguistic competition, the phonological neighborhood density of the targets' translations was also manipulated. The results show that crosslinguistic effects are impacted by noise; when the translation had a high neighborhood density, performance was worse for cognates than for noncognates, especially in noise. The findings suggest that noise increases lexical competition across languages, as it does within a language, and that the crosslinguistic phonological overlap for cognates compared with noncognates can further increase the pool of competitors by co-activating crosslinguistic lexical candidates. The results are discussed within the context of the bilingual word recognition literature and models of language and bilingual lexical processing.

Noncombinatorial grammar: A challenge for memory research on second language acquisition and bilingualism

Research on second language acquisition has greatly benefitted from the declarative procedural model (DPM). The DPM proposes that declarative and procedural memory support – respectively – the acquisition of the L2 lexicon and L2 grammar. However, over the years, the meaning of ‘grammar’ and ‘lexicon’ within the DPM has changed, perhaps as a result of the changes occurred in linguistic theory. In particular, a number of studies coupled the combinatorial rules of grammar supported by procedural memory with patterns of usage and probabilistic rules. Such specification apparently excluded ‘noncombinatorial grammar’, which is the grammar computed over frequency-independent features. This paper first discusses the evolution of ‘grammar’ and ‘lexicon’ within the DPM, then describes a number of noncombinatorial phenomena that have been overlooked in memory studies on bilingualism. The aim is to encourage future research on whether and how especially procedural memory can also support the acquisition of noncombinatorial grammar. • Memory research paired procedural memory with grammatical processing and declarative memory with lexical processing. • Procedural memory was gradually paired with the statistical learning of regularities. • Noncombinatorial grammar is totally underrepresented in memory research on bilingualism.

Multivariate decoding methods reveal how speaking two dialects affects executive functions.

How speaking two languages affects executive functions has been a long-standing debate and the mechanisms underlying the observed cognitive advantages of bilingualism remain unspecified. Here, using multivariate pattern classification methods, we decoded spatial patterns of neural signals associated with Flanker task performance in mono-dialectal and bi-dialectal speakers of Chinese. While univariate approach to even-related potentials (ERPs) showed no between-group difference, decoding accuracy of ERPs was reduced in bi-dialectal as compared to mono-dialectal speakers in both congruent-neutral and incongruent-neutral classifications. There was no effect of bidialectalism, however, on decoding accuracy of alpha-band oscillations, an electrophysiological index implicated in inhibition. Behavioural data analysed using the Drift Diffusion Model (DDM) showed facilitating effects of bidialectalism on non-decision times but no effect on drift rates. These findings demonstrate that using two dialects on a daily basis enhances general attentional deployment rather than affecting specific component of executive functions such as inhibitory control. Given that the two dialects of Chinese differed almost exclusively in phonology, the bidialectalism effect was most likely motivated by resolving phonological competition at lexical processing level.

Top-down information shapes lexical processing when listening to continuous speech

ABSTRACT Speech is often structurally and semantically ambiguous. Here we study how the human brain uses sentence context to resolve lexical ambiguity. Twenty-one participants listened to spoken narratives while magneto-encephalography (MEG) was recorded. Stories were annotated for grammatical word class (noun, verb, adjective) under two hypothesised sources of information: “bottom-up”: the most common word class given the word’s phonology; “top-down”: the correct word class given the context. We trained a classifier on trials where the hypotheses matched (about 90%) and tested the classifier on trials where they mismatched. The classifier predicted top-down word class labels, and anti-correlated with bottom-up labels. Effects peaked ∼100 ms after word onset over mid-frontal MEG sensors. Phonetic information was encoded in parallel, though peaking later (∼200 ms). Our results support that lexical representations are built in a context-sensitive manner, which precedes sensory phonetic processing. We showcase multivariate analyses for teasing apart subtle representational distinctions from neural time series.

Emotion Word Processing in Immersed Spanish-English/English-Spanish Bilinguals: An ERP Study

We conducted a lexical decision task to measure Spanish-English/English-Spanish bilinguals’ behavioral (RT) and electrophysiological (EPN, Early Posterior Negativity and LPC, Late Positive Complex) responses to English emotion words and their Spanish translation equivalents. Bilingual participants varied in age of acquisition (AoA of Spanish/English: early, late), language status (L1 Spanish, L1 English) and language dominance (English-dominant, Spanish-dominant, balanced) but were all highly immersed bicultural individuals, uniformly more proficient in English than Spanish. Behavioral data showed faster and more accurate responses to English than Spanish targets; however, the emotion effect was only present for Spanish, with positive Spanish words recognized significantly faster than those that were negative or neutral. In the electrophysiological data, the emotion response was affected by language of the target stimulus, with English targets eliciting larger EPN amplitudes than Spanish targets. The reverse effect was found on the LPC component, where Spanish targets elicited a higher positivity than English targets. Dominance did not turn out to be a significant predictor of bilingual performance. Results point to the relevance of proficiency in modulating bilingual lexical processing and carry implications for experimental design when examining immersed bilinguals residing in codeswitching environments.

Studying the effect of self-selected background music on reading task with eye movements

Using background music (BGM) during learning is a common behavior, yet whether BGM can facilitate or hinder learning remains inconclusive and the underlying mechanism is largely an open question. This study aims to elucidate the effect of self-selected BGM on reading task for learners with different characteristics. Particularly, learners’ reading task performance, metacognition, and eye movements were examined, in relation to their personal traits including language proficiency, working memory capacity, music experience and personality. Data were collected from a between-subject experiment with 100 non-native English speakers who were randomly assigned into two groups. Those in the experimental group read English passages with music of their own choice played in the background, while those in the control group performed the same task in silence. Results showed no salient differences on passage comprehension accuracy or metacognition between the two groups. Comparisons on fine-grained eye movement measures reveal that BGM imposed heavier cognitive load on post-lexical processes but not on lexical processes. It was also revealed that students with higher English proficiency level or more frequent BGM usage in daily self-learning/reading experienced less cognitive load when reading with their BGM, whereas students with higher working memory capacity (WMC) invested more mental effort than those with lower WMC in the BGM condition. These findings further scientific understanding of how BGM interacts with cognitive tasks in the foreground, and provide practical guidance for learners and learning environment designers on making the most of BGM for instruction and learning.

Does speed‐reading training work, and if so, why? Effects of speed‐reading training and metacognitive training on reading speed, comprehension and eye movements

BackgroundCommercial speed‐reading training programs are typically marketed with the promise to dramatically increase reading speed without impairing comprehension. From the perspective of reading psychology, it seems quite unlikely that speed‐reading training can indeed have such effects. However, research on the effectiveness of modern speed‐reading training programs on reading performance in typical readers is sparse. The present study had two goals. First, we sought to extend prior research on speed‐reading by assessing the effects of a speed‐reading application on reading performance in a pre‐training and post‐training design with a control group. Second, we aimed to identify the mechanism underlying speed‐reading training programs.MethodsWe assessed reading speed, comprehension and eye movements of 30 German‐speaking undergraduates (Mage = 22.77 years, SDage = 3.41 years) before and after they received a commercial, app‐based speed‐reading training, a metacognitive training or no training.ResultsResults revealed higher reading speed in the speed‐reading condition and metacognitive condition compared with the control condition, although not to the extent claimed in the application. Eye‐movement data indicated that the increase in reading speed was due to fewer and shorter fixations in measures reflecting late but not early lexical processing. No differences in comprehension performance were observed between the three conditions.ConclusionsWe discuss our findings in support of the idea that the increase in reading speed was not caused by a change in basic characteristics of participants' reading behaviour, but rather by an increase in their awareness of their own reading process. Further research is needed to investigate whether the observed effects are maintained over time.

Deriving lexical statistics for psycholinguistic research on isiXhosa

Psycholinguistic research on isiXhosa and related Bantu languages is scarce. For research on lexical processing in particular, a prerequisite is data on lexical properties that impact word recognition, such as word frequency and neighbourhood density. This paper describes the derivation of these and related lexical statistics from a newly created 4.8-million-word isiXhosa corpus. It then reviews the potential applications of such a lexical database for research on language acquisition, language development, and language processing. The paper closes with recommendations for further work in this domain.

The Resilience of the Phonological Network May Have Implications for Developmental and Acquired Disorders.

A central tenet of network science states that the structure of the network influences processing. In this study of a phonological network of English words we asked: how does damage alter the network structure (Study 1)? How does the damaged structure influence lexical processing (Study 2)? How does the structure of the intact network "protect" processing with a less efficient algorithm (Study 3)? In Study 1, connections in the network were randomly removed to increasingly damage the network. Various measures showed the network remained well-connected (i.e., it is resilient to damage) until ~90% of the connections were removed. In Study 2, computer simulations examined the retrieval of a set of words. The performance of the model was positively correlated with naming accuracy by people with aphasia (PWA) on the Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT) across four types of aphasia. In Study 3, we demonstrated another way to model developmental or acquired disorders by manipulating how efficiently activation spread through the network. We found that the structure of the network "protects" word retrieval despite decreases in processing efficiency; words that are relatively easy to retrieve with efficient transmission of priming remain relatively easy to retrieve with less efficient transmission of priming. Cognitive network science and computer simulations may provide insight to a wide range of speech, language, hearing, and cognitive disorders.

Early lexical processing of Chinese one-character words and Mongolian words: A comparative study using event-related potentials.

Logographic language and alphabetic language differ significantly in orthography. Investigating the commonality and particularity of visual word recognition between the two distinct writing systems is informative for understating the neural mechanisms underlying visual word recognition. In the present study, we compared the chronometry of early lexical processing and the brain regions involved in early lexical processing between Chinese (logographic language) and Mongolian (alphabetic language) by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) using both implicit and explicit reading tasks. Familiar Chinese one-character words (lexical) and unknown Chinese one-character words (non-lexical) were pseudorandomly presented to native Chinese readers in Experiment 1. Mongolian words (lexical) and pseudowords (non-lexical) were pseudorandomly presented to native Mongolian readers in Experiment 2. In the color decision task, participants were asked to decide the color (black or blue) of each stimulus. In the lexical recognition task, participants were asked to report whether they could recognize each stimulus. The results showed that in both experiments and both tasks, ERPs to lexical items differed significantly from those to non-lexical items in the parietooccipital scalp region approximately 250 ms after stimulus onset, reflecting the early lexical processing, which likely originated from the ventral occipitotemporal cortex as revealed by source analysis. These results indicated that although Chinese and Mongolian differed markedly in orthographic features, the neural mechanisms underlying early lexical processing are similar between the two languages.

Conceptual combination during novel and existing compound word reading in context: A self-paced reading study.

According to the relation-interpretation-competition-evaluation (RICE) hypothesis, compound word processing involves selecting a relational meaning (e.g., moonlight is 'light from moon') from a larger set of competing possible relational meanings. Prior lexical decision experiments with existing compound words have demonstrated that greater entropy of conceptual relations, i.e., greater competition between conceptual relations, impedes lexical processing speed. The present study addresses two unresolved issues: First, it is unclear whether the competition effect generalizes to the processing of novel compounds (e.g., grassladder), and second, it is not yet known whether competition between possible relational meanings extends to compounds when they are read in a sentence context. A series of self-paced reading tasks examined whether the competition effect operates regardless of (i) compound type (existing vs. novel), and (ii) whether sentence context (semantically supportive vs. semantically non-supportive) moderates the competition effect. The experiments confirmed that reading times of novel and existing compounds read in sentences were impacted by entropy of conceptual relations. Moreover, the effect was equally strong in both sentence context types. Additional analyses indicated that relational meanings are more ambiguous and flexible across different contexts for novel compounds compared to existing compounds.

Word reading by sequential trilingual: the relative strength of lexical and sub-lexical processing in Arabic and English orthographies

Word reading by sequential trilingual: the relative strength of lexical and sub-lexical processing in Arabic and English orthographies

Handwriting fluency, latency, and kinematic in Portuguese writing system: Pilot study with school children from 3rd to 5th grade.

Studies have referred to the interaction between orthographic and motor aspects during the production of handwriting. However, studies with Brazilian Portuguese are still lacking. Hence, the aim of this study was to compare orthographic regularity, based on the Portuguese writing system, in high (HF) and low (LF) frequency words, in relation to latency and kinematic variables in students from the 3rd to the 5th grade of elementary school. This is a cross-sectional pilot study, with a convenience sample of 95 children participated in this study, from 3rd to 5th grade level attending a state elementary school. All were submitted to the following procedures of computerized evaluation of handwriting and submitted to the task of writing 15 HF and 15 LF words, selected according to the frequency criteria and classified according writing coding rule. Results indicated that for HF words, there was a decrease in writing and disfluencies production time, for all coding rules, from 3rd to 5th grade. However, for LF words, the more unpredictable orthographic affect production duration time, movement fluency, and students became more dependent on the use of gaze to check spelling aspects. This study revealed that lexical and sub-lexical activation affected motor production. For HF and LF words, lexical and sublexical process favored motor programming. However, for LF words, despite the maturation and school progression for the motor planes, there was an increase in latency time and in the need to search for word information, measured by the gaze variable for words with greater irregularity. This study has provided some evidence that linguistic variables such as orthographic regularity and word familiarity affect handwriting performance in Brazilian Portuguese written language.

Language environment and parent-infant close contact in neonatal care and emerging lexical abilities of very preterm children-a longitudinal study.

This longitudinal study investigated associations between language environment and parent-infant close contact in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and preterm children's lexical abilities. NICU language environment of 43 very preterm infants (born<32 gestational weeks) was measured with the Language Environment Analysis System (LENA; variables: number of adult words, conversational turns, and child vocalisations). Parent-infant close contact (holding and skin-to-skin contact) in the NICU was reported using parental closeness diaries. At 15 and 18months' corrected age, lexical development was measured with screening methods, and eye tracking-based lexical processing was assessed at 18months. N varied between 29 and 38 in different outcome measures. LENA measured conversational turns and child vocalisations, and parent-infant close contact associated positively with lexical development (r=0.35-0.57). High numbers of NICU adult words associated negatively with lexical processing (r=-0.38- -0.40). In regression models, conversational turns and parent-infant close contact explained 34%-35% of receptive development. Findings suggest that adult-infant turn taking and parent-infant close contact in the NICU are positively associated with lexical development. High numbers of overheard words in the NICU may not favour later lexical processing. Further research is warranted on the significance of NICU language environment on later lexical abilities.

How do word valence and classes influence lexical processing? Evidence from virtual reality emotional contexts.

The current study examines the influence of word class (i.e., noun vs. adjective) and valence (i.e., positive vs. negative vs. neutral) on the processing of emotional words under different virtual reality (VR) emotional contexts. To this end, 115 participants performed a modified affect labeling task after experiencing different VR scenarios. Their galvanic skin responses were also examined to further gauge the different effects of VR contexts. The results demonstrated significant main effect for word valence, indicating more processing of positive words relative to neutral words which are processed more than negative words. The results also demonstrated significant main effect for word class, indicating more processing of nouns in contrast to adjectives. Additionally, the results indicated that both positive and negative VR contexts could stimulate participants to select more positive words though negatively valenced words were processed more under negative VR context relative to positive VR context. However, the amplitude of galvanic skin responses in positive VR was lower than that in negative VR. The results were interpreted in line with the situation-consistency effects, the mood-consistency effects, the specific nature of VR context, and the different features of different word classes in terms of concreteness, imageability, arousal, and valence.