Language Comprehension Processes Research Articles

Verbs in space: Axis and direction of motion norms for 299 English verbs

A strong body of work has explored the interaction between visual perception and language comprehension; for example, recent studies exploring predictions from embodied cognition have focused particularly on the common representation of sensory-motor and semantic information. Motivated by this background, we provide a set of norms for the axis and direction of motion implied in 299 English verbs, collected from approximately 100 native speakers of British English. Until now, there have been no freely available norms of this kind for a large set of verbs that can be used in any area of language research investigating the semantic representation of motion. We have used these norms to investigate the interaction between language comprehension and low-level visual processes involved in motion perception, validating the norming procedure's ability to capture the motion content of individual verbs. Supplemental materials for this study may be downloaded from brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

Processing ambiguous Spanish se in a minimal chain

The recovery of pieces of information that are not linguistically expressed is a constant feature of the process of language comprehension. In the processing literature, such missing information is generally referred to as "gaps". Usually, one resolves gaps by finding "fillers" in either the sentence or the context. For instance, in Peter seemed to be upset, Peter is really the subject of being upset but appears as surface subject of seems. Sometimes constituents move, leaving gaps behind. Various Romance languages such as Spanish or Italian have a grammatical particle se/si, which, as it is extremely ambiguous, licenses different sorts of gaps. In Spanish, se can encode at least reflexive, impersonal, and passive meanings. In an eye-tracking experiment we contrast reflexive structures containing postverbal subjects with impersonal structures with no subjects (GAP se vendó apresuradamente el corredor/"the runner bandaged himself hurriedly" vs. GAP se vendó apresuradamente al corridor/"(someone) bandaged the runner hurriedly"). In a second manipulation we contrast the presence of an extra argument with se-passives (GAP se vendó el tobillo el corredor/"the runner bandaged his ankle" vs. GAP se vendó el tobillo al corridor/"the runner's ankle was bandaged"). Our comparisons involve contrasting standard transitive structures with nonstandard word order (postverbal subject and a preverbal subject gap) against inherently complex and less habitual structures such as impersonals (with no subject) or se-passives (with subjects in canonical object position). We evaluate the minimal chain principle (de Vincenzi, 1991), according to which displacement is costly because it entails complex (derivational) "chains" that must be undone before phrasal packaging can commence. We show the minimal chain principle to be essentially correct when contrasting more complex but more frequent structures with less complex but less frequent structures. A noteworthy feature of this research is that the gaps appear before the fillers in the structures that we analyse.

Language and Brain – Facts, Problems, Mysteries

The representation of language in the brain is one of the lively topics in recent cognitive neurosciences. The present paper argues that standard models of structures and mechanisms of the brain, which are essentially based on principles of activation spreading in neuronal nets and learning by synaptic strengthening through coincidental activation, cannot account for crucial properties of the Language Faculty and are misguided in central respects. In particular, the apparently elegant notion that working memory is just the activated state of long-term memory is shown to be incapable of accounting for structures and processes of language production and comprehension. Four types of problems are sketched that illustrate the impasses encountered by standard models of activation spreading.

Networks for phonological and semantic processing in auditory language comprehension

Introduction: The aim of our study was to explore the cortical network structure of phonological and semantic processing during auditory language comprehension.

Aufmerksamkeit und Sprachverarbeitung

Effektive Sprachverarbeitung stützt sich zu großen Teilen auf attentionale Prozesse, die durch Interaktion distribuierter neuronaler Netzwerke zustande kommen. Während Sprachrezeptionsprozesse ein hohes Maß an selektiver Aufmerksamkeit erfordern bei der frühen Informationsselektion und bei der Herstellung einer kohärenten mentalen Textbasis, verlangen Sprachproduktionsprozesse vor allem im Hinblick auf Planung und Überwachung Aufmerksamkeitsressourcen. Zahlreiche Subkomponenten der Sprachverarbeitung sind bei gesunden Sprechern hochautomatisiert und wenig aufmerksamkeitsintensiv (syntaktische Verarbeitung, lexikalische Aktivierung), können jedoch durch zerebrale Läsionen innerhalb des funktionalen Aufmerksamkeitssystems ihre Automatisiertheit verlieren. Während Störungen der Aufmerksamkeitsintensität Sprachverarbeitungsprozesse vor allem verlangsamen, führen Störungen der Aufmerksamkeitsselektivität u. a. zu Kohärenzbrüchen bei der Produktion und Rezeption von Äußerungen. So zeigen bspw. Patienten mit Frontalhirnschädigung bei Ad-hoc-Steuerungen tangentiale und inkohärente Sprachproduktionen sowie im freien Diskurs Defizite im Sprachverständnis infolge einer beeinträchtigten Inhibition irrelevanter Informationen und einer mangelhaften Fokussierung des Wesentlichen. Bei aphasischen Patienten führen beeinträchtigte Inhibitions-, Sequenzierungs- und Fokussierungsprozesse zu einer fluktuierenden und störanfälligen Sprachverarbeitung.

Language processing in reading and speech perception is fast and incremental: Implications for event-related potential research

An overview of language processing during reading and listening is provided. Evidence is reviewed indicating that language processing in both domains is fast and incremental. We also discuss some aspects of normal reading and listening that are often obscured in event-related potential (ERP) research. We also discuss some apparent limitations of ERP techniques, as well as some recent indications that electroencephalographic (EEG) measures can be used to probe how lexical knowledge and lexical or structural expectations can contribute to the incremental process of language comprehension.

On-line Integration of Semantic Information from Speech and Gesture: Insights from Event-related Brain Potentials

During language comprehension, listeners use the global semantic representation from previous sentence or discourse context to immediately integrate the meaning of each upcoming word into the unfolding message-level representation. Here we investigate whether communicative gestures that often spontaneously co-occur with speech are processed in a similar fashion and integrated to previous sentence context in the same way as lexical meaning. Event-related potentials were measured while subjects listened to spoken sentences with a critical verb (e.g., knock), which was accompanied by an iconic co-speech gesture (i.e., KNOCK). Verbal and/or gestural semantic content matched or mismatched the content of the preceding part of the sentence. Despite the difference in the modality and in the specificity of meaning conveyed by spoken words and gestures, the latency, amplitude, and topographical distribution of both word and gesture mismatches are found to be similar, indicating that the brain integrates both types of information simultaneously. This provides evidence for the claim that neural processing in language comprehension involves the simultaneous incorporation of information coming from a broader domain of cognition than only verbal semantics. The neural evidence for similar integration of information from speech and gesture emphasizes the tight interconnection between speech and co-speech gestures.

Cognitive adequacy in structural-functional theories of language

This paper discusses the role played by cognition in three linguistic theories which may be labelled as ‘structural-functional’: Functional (Discourse) Grammar, Role and Reference Grammar and Systemic Functional Grammar. It argues that if we are to achieve true cognitive adequacy, we must go well beyond the grammar itself to include the processes of conceptualisation, categorisation and construal, and that the model should be dynamic, in the sense that it should describe the processes of language production and comprehension rather than only the patterns found in languages. The discussion provides evidence that none of the three theories can currently be considered to achieve high standards of cognitive adequacy, despite the efforts made in this direction in Functional Discourse Grammar. Recent work which links Role and Reference Grammar to studies of production and comprehension is, however, promising. The paper ends with a plea for a more highly developed synthesis of work in linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, neurology and neurolinguistics, integrated with perspectives from the study of the sociocultural contexts in which language is used.

Radical changes in cognitive process due to technology

A strong case can be made that the cognitive system is designed for guiding action, not, for example, symbol manipulation. I review empirical work demonstrating the link between action and cognition with special attention to the processes of language comprehension. Next, I sketch an embodied cognition framework for integrating work on language understanding with a more general approach to cognition and action. This general approach considers contributions to action of bodily states, emotions, social and cultural processes, and learning within a framework that generates a dynamic system. This framework is used to consider the notion of distributed cognition and the prospects that technology might induce substantial changes in cognition. My assessment is that such changes are unlikely.

Persistent structural priming from language comprehension to language production

To examine the relationship between syntactic processes in language comprehension and language production, we compared structural persistence from sentence primes that speakers heard to persistence from primes that speakers produced. [Bock, J. K., & Griffin, Z. M. (2000). The persistence of structural priming: transient activation or implicit learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129, 177–192.] showed that the production of target priming structures increased the probability of spontaneously using the same structures to describe events in subsequent pictures that were semantically unrelated to the primes. These priming effects persisted across as many as ten intervening filler trials. The present studies replicated these results using auditorily presented primes to which participants only listened. The results indicated persistence of priming across all lags, with relative magnitudes of priming as large as those observed by Bock and Griffin. The implication is that structural priming is persistent regardless of the modality in which language structures are experienced, underscoring the power of priming as an implicit learning mechanism.

Language Deficits in Poor Comprehenders: A Case for the Simple View of Reading

To examine concurrently and retrospectively the language abilities of children with specific reading comprehension deficits ("poor comprehenders") and compare them to typical readers and children with specific decoding deficits ("poor decoders"). In Study 1, the authors identified 57 poor comprehenders, 27 poor decoders, and 98 typical readers on the basis of 8th-grade reading achievement. These subgroups' performances on 8th-grade measures of language comprehension and phonological processing were investigated. In Study 2, the authors examined retrospectively subgroups' performances on measures of language comprehension and phonological processing in kindergarten, 2nd, and 4th grades. Word recognition and reading comprehension in 2nd and 4th grades were also considered. Study 1 showed that poor comprehenders had concurrent deficits in language comprehension but normal abilities in phonological processing. Poor decoders were characterized by the opposite pattern of language abilities. Study 2 results showed that subgroups had language (and word recognition) profiles in the earlier grades that were consistent with those observed in 8th grade. Subgroup differences in reading comprehension were inconsistent across grades but reflective of the changes in the components of reading comprehension over time. The results support the simple view of reading and the phonological deficit hypothesis. Furthermore, the findings indicate that a classification system that is based on the simple view has advantages over standard systems that focus only on word recognition and/or reading comprehension.

Tracking speech comprehension in space and time

A fundamental challenge for the cognitive neuroscience of language is to capture the spatio-temporal patterns of brain activity that underlie critical functional components of the language comprehension process. We combine here psycholinguistic analysis, whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG), the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) paradigm, and state-of-the-art source localization techniques (Equivalent Current Dipole and L1 Minimum-Norm Current Estimates) to locate the process of spoken word recognition at a specific moment in space and time. The magnetic MMN to words presented as rare “deviant stimuli” in an oddball paradigm among repetitive “standard” speech stimuli, peaked 100–150 ms after the information in the acoustic input, was sufficient for word recognition. The latency with which words were recognized corresponded to that of an MMN source in the left superior temporal cortex. There was a significant correlation ( r = 0.7) of latency measures of word recognition in individual study participants with the latency of the activity peak of the superior temporal source. These results demonstrate a correspondence between the behaviorally determined recognition point for spoken words and the cortical activation in left posterior superior temporal areas. Both the MMN calculated in the classic manner, obtained by subtracting standard from deviant stimulus response recorded in the same experiment, and the identity MMN (iMMN), defined as the difference between the neuromagnetic responses to the same stimulus presented as standard and deviant stimulus, showed the same significant correlation with word recognition processes.

The Effect Of Age On Working Memory Capacity And Syntactic Processing

The role of WM in syntactic processing has been discussed extensively in the literature. Some researchers claim that a single working memory capacity is used during processing (Just & Carpenter, 1992), and there are others who claim that language comprehension and syntactic processing can be divided into two stages (Caplan & Waters, 1995). This study examines the relationship between age, working memory capacity and on-line /off-line syntactic processing, using Dutch stimuli in self-paced reading task and a reading span task. The results showed that WM capacity significantly declines with age. The self-paced reading times of the Dutch subject/object ambiguities showed a significant quantitative difference between the two age groups, but not a qualitative difference: the elderly group read significantly slower than the young group but the pattern of the reading times was identical for both age groups. Off-line, the results of the comprehension questions show that comprehension was affected for the elderly group in the items that demanded less WM capacity compared to the young group. No age-effect was found in the results of the comprehension questions in the WM-demanding items. Overall, this study cannot support the claim that a single WM capacity is used for syntactic processing and comprehension.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy may improve symptoms in autistic children

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that currently affects as many as 1 out of 166 children in the United States. Recent research has discovered that some autistic individuals have decreased cerebral perfusion, evidence of neuroinflammation, and increased markers of oxidative stress. Multiple independent single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) research studies have revealed hypoperfusion to several areas of the autistic brain, most notably the temporal regions and areas specifically related to language comprehension and auditory processing. Several studies show that diminished blood flow to these areas correlates with many of the clinical features associated with autism including repetitive, self-stimulatory and stereotypical behaviors, and impairments in communication, sensory perception, and social interaction. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) has been used with clinical success in several cerebral hypoperfusion syndromes including cerebral palsy, fetal alcohol syndrome, closed head injury, and stroke. HBOT can compensate for decreased blood flow by increasing the oxygen content of plasma and body tissues and can even normalize oxygen levels in ischemic tissue. In addition, animal studies have shown that HBOT has potent anti-inflammatory effects and reduces oxidative stress. Furthermore, recent evidence demonstrates that HBOT mobilizes stem cells from human bone marrow, which may aid recovery in neurodegenerative diseases. Based upon these findings, it is hypothesized that HBOT will improve symptoms in autistic individuals. A retrospective case series is presented that supports this hypothesis.

Improving language and literacy is a matter of time.

Developmental deficits that affect speech perception increase the risk of language and literacy problems, which can lead to lowered academic and occupational accomplishment. Normal development and disorders of speech perception have both been linked to temporospectral auditory processing speed. Understanding the role of dynamic auditory processing in speech perception and language comprehension has led to the development of neuroplasticity-based intervention strategies aimed at ameliorating language and literacy problems and their sequelae.

APT: Costs and benefits of a hybrid model

In their keynote contribution, Truscott and Sharwood Smith offer a general model of language development from a processing perspective. As they state, their model is very ambitious: Their ‘acquisition by processing’ theory (APT) aims not only at explaining both first and second language acquisition but also real-time processing in language comprehension and production. APT takes a cross-disciplinary approach that intends to bring together research on linguistic structure and on general cognition. However, the joint contribution of linguistic and psycholinguistic approaches is mainly evident in terms of theoretical concepts (e.g. UG, syntactic rules, modules, activation) because the presented empirical evidence is limited in scope.

On the Graded Salience Hypothesis

Kecskes: Professor Giora, in your recent papers and book (1997, 1999, 2003) you o¤er an alternative to the interactionist view that assumes the priority of context and selective compliance with contextual information. Your ‘‘Graded Salience Hypothesis’’ (GSH) claims that lexical processing takes priority over contextual processing. In the initial phase of language comprehension, contextual and lexical processes do not interact but run parallel, and this stage is dominated by lexical access. Salient (coded and prominent) meanings of lexical units are accessed automatically and are then revised in the case of a misfit with context. In what follows I would like you to answer three questions concerning your theory.

Phonological processing in language production: Time course of brain activity

Recent neuroimaging studies provide evidence for a shared neural network for phonological processing in language production and comprehension. The temporal dynamics in this network during comprehension has been investigated by Thierry et al., who showed a primacy for Wernicke's over Broca's area. In the present study, we demonstrate the reversed pattern for language production. These results can be interpreted with respect to the functionality of the different regions within the shared network, with Wernicke's area being the sound form store and Broca's area a processor necessary to extract relevant phonological information from that store.

Phonological processing in language production: time course of brain activity.

Recent neuroimaging studies provide evidence for a shared neural network for phonological processing in language production and comprehension. The temporal dynamics in this network during comprehension has been investigated by Thierry et al., who showed a primacy for Wernicke's over Broca's area. In the present study, we demonstrate the reversed pattern for language production. These results can be interpreted with respect to the functionality of the different regions within the shared network, with Wernicke's area being the sound form store and Broca's area a processor necessary to extract relevant phonological information from that store.

Semantic and syntactic processes during sentence comprehension in patients with schizophrenia: evidence from event-related potentials.

Language and thought disorders are core symptoms in schizophrenia. We therefore studied language comprehension processes in patients with schizophrenia and control subjects during a sentence processing paradigm using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the ERP, assignment of syntactic structure to a string of words is reflected by an early left anterior negativity (ELAN) at about 80 ms after stimulus onset. Integration of syntactic and semantic information into a coherent representation is indexed by a positive potential at 600 ms (P600). Amplitudes of the ELAN and the P600 components are higher for grammatically incorrect sentences. Semantic processes are associated with a negative deflection peaking at 400 ms (N400). N400 amplitude is higher in semantically incongruent sentences. Nineteen patients with DSM IV schizophrenia and 19 healthy controls were presented with correct, semantically incorrect (semantic mismatch) and grammatically incorrect sentences (syntactic mismatch). Syntactic mismatch elicited an ELAN component in both subject groups. However, only controls but not patients with schizophrenia exhibited a P600 syntactic mismatch effect. Semantic mismatch was associated with a larger N400 potential which did not differ between groups. These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia are not impaired in syntactic structure assignment as reflected by the ELAN, but show deficits in semantic-syntactic integration processes underlying the P600.