Series Of Syllables Research Articles

What a difference a syllable makes-Rhythmic reading of poetry.

In reading conventional poems aloud, the rhythmic experience is coupled with the projection of meter, enabling the prediction of subsequent input. However, it is unclear how top-down and bottom-up processes interact. If the rhythmicity in reading loud is governed by the top-down prediction of metric patterns of weak and strong stress, these should be projected also onto a randomly included, lexically meaningless syllable. If bottom-up information such as the phonetic quality of consecutive syllables plays a functional role in establishing a structured rhythm, the occurrence of the lexically meaningless syllable should affect reading and the number of these syllables in a metrical line should modulate this effect. To investigate this, we manipulated poems by replacing regular syllables at random positions with the syllable "tack". Participants were instructed to read the poems aloud and their voice was recorded during the reading. At the syllable level, we calculated the syllable onset interval (SOI) as a measure of articulation duration, as well as the mean syllable intensity. Both measures were supposed to operationalize how strongly a syllable was stressed. Results show that the average articulation duration of metrically strong regular syllables was longer than for weak syllables. This effect disappeared for "tacks". Syllable intensities, on the other hand, captured metrical stress of "tacks" as well, but only for musically active participants. Additionally, we calculated the normalized pairwise variability index (nPVI) for each line as an indicator for rhythmic contrast, i.e., the alternation between long and short, as well as louder and quieter syllables, to estimate the influence of "tacks" on reading rhythm. For SOI the nPVI revealed a clear negative effect: When "tacks" occurred, lines appeared to be read less altering, and this effect was proportional to the number of tacks per line. For intensity, however, the nPVI did not capture significant effects. Results suggests that top-down prediction does not always suffice to maintain a rhythmic gestalt across a series of syllables that carry little bottom-up prosodic information. Instead, the constant integration of sufficiently varying bottom-up information appears necessary to maintain a stable metrical pattern prediction.

Investigating the Disturbance Impact of Background Speech on Verbal and Visual-Spatial Short-Term Memory: On the Differential Contributions of Changing-State and Phonology to the Irrelevant Sound Effect

ABSTRACT The empirically robust phenomenon of impaired verbal short-term memory due to task-irrelevant background speech is known as the Irrelevant Sound Effect (ISE). Yet, the underlying cognitive mechanisms are still not fully resolved, like whether phonology-based interference contributes to the disruptive effect of speech on verbal serial recall. Thus, we tested the ISE for such a speech-specific aspect by varying the phonological content of the irrelevant speech and the verbal nature of the task. Furthermore, we also varied the changing-state characteristic of irrelevant speech. Therefore, visual-verbal and visual-spatial serial recall of 70 participants each was measured during silence and syllable series varying in phonological (unaltered speech vs. sinewave speech) and in changing-state content (one repeatedly presented vs. successively changing syllables). Both phonology and changing-state characteristic had significant and independent impacts on each of the two serial recall tasks, and both effects were unrelated to participants’ working memory capacity. Changing-state sequences were more disturbing than steady-state sounds for both serial recall tasks, but the effect of phonological content was not in the same direction for the two tasks. Whereas unaltered speech sounds impaired verbal serial recall more than their phonologically reduced sinewave versions, this was the opposite for visual-spatial serial recall. In the latter task, however, only changing-state sinewave speech reduced performance significantly compared to silence condition. In summary, our results indicate that there is a speech-specific, disruptive effect of phonological content, which is an attention-independent interference effect and presumably restricted to verbal short-term memory.

Efficacy constraints on female directional preference stabilize a male call component in a multimodal cricket duet

Mate advertisement signals can vary in their variability, with some signals or signal components being highly stereotyped and others highly variable. One hypothesis for differences in variability suggests that receivers provide stabilizing selection for signal components important for mate recognition, resulting in low variability, while also providing directional selection for signal components indicating mate quality, correlating with greater variability. Factors that affect signal efficacy, however, can also influence signal design – and might interact with receiver preferences to influence variability. We investigated these hypotheses in the duetting cricket species Lebinthus bitaeniatus Stål. Like many other insects, these crickets use call-and-response signalling to find mates. Males produce an acoustic signal, females reply with a vibrational signal, and males use these vibrations to find females. Male calls have two components: a series of isolated syllables (ticks) followed by a rapid series of syllables (a trill). The number of ticks per call is highly variable, whereas the number of pulses in the trill is stereotyped. Male size was correlated positively with the number of trill pulses per call, but not with the number of ticks. Female response amplitude was not related to the number of ticks in the male call (the variable component) and it increased with trill duration (the stereotyped signal component), contrary to the stabilizing directional selection hypothesis. We also found, however, that the latency of the female vibrational reply became erratic as the trill increased beyond the typical duration. Since males in duetting insect species rely on the species-specific latency of the female reply to recognize the signal, this reduces the efficacy of the female reply for communication despite the females’ greater amplitude response. Given the prevalence of call-and-response signalling in insects, this relationship between female response amplitude and signal efficacy could be a common factor influencing signal variability across many species. • Male calls in a duetting cricket species have two components: ticks and a trill. • The number of ticks per call is highly variable, whereas the trill is stereotyped. • Female vibrational replies to males were unaffected by the number of ticks per call. • Females produced stronger replies to longer trills, but timing was adversely affected. • An interaction between female reply amplitude and efficacy explains uniform trills.

A new species of Cephalophlugis Gorochov, 1998 (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Meconematinae: Phlugidini) from Southern Brazil, with bioacoustics and cytogenetics.

Cephalophlugis Gorochov, 1998 is a Neotropical genus of predatory katydids with two valid species, Cephalophlugis cephalotes (Bolvar, 1888) (from So Paulo, Brazil) and Cephalophlugis setosa Gorochov, 2012 (from Sucumbios, Ecuador). Herein, we describe a third species of the genus, Cephalophlugis gaucho sp. nov., from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. This species is easily distinguished from the others by the color of the hind wings and the number of spurs on the fore and middle legs. The calling song is composed of a long phrase with a series of syllables that vary in emission rate from beginning to end, with a dominant frequency of 23.43 0.6 (22.1224.37, n=11) kHz. So far, the species sings at the lowest frequency among the Phlugidini. From the chromosomal perspective, C. gaucho sp. nov. presents the karyotype 2n=31, X0, with the complement conserved within Meconematinae.

Hyperdiverse songs, duetting, and the roles of intra- and intersexual selection in the acoustic communication of the genus Eurycorypha (Orthoptera: Tettigonioidea, Phaneropterinae)

Acoustic communication is an essential part of the mate-finding system of many insects, e.g., ensiferan Orthoptera. In this group, the signals consist typically of relatively simple repetitive sound patterns produced for long times and used by the females for a phonotactic approach to the singing males. However, the situation can be different in duetting species where the females respond acoustically to the male. Here, we present data of the songs of 14 East African species of the duetting genus Eurycorypha. These songs are extremely diverse differing in many parameters and containing up to three different syllable types grouped into various echemes. In the duets between males and females, studied in 7 species, the females respond with latency times between 100 and 400 ms and are in some species able to react to different trigger syllables or also to the end of a series of syllables. The males often modify their songs after having heard a female response. Some of these modifications are also produced spontaneously. Similar elements are even found as integral part of the calling song in some species. We interpret these modifications aimed to protect a duet against eavesdropping rivals and thus as part of intrasexual selection. The evolution of the complicated song patterns may thus be driven by the interaction between female choice s.l. and male-male competition.

Two-year-old children’s processing of two-word sequences occurring 19 or more times per million and their influence on subsequent word learning

We know that 8-month-old infants track the statistical properties of a series of syllables and that 2- and 3-year-old children process familiar phrases more efficiently than unfamiliar phrases, but less is known about the intermediary level of two-word sequences. In Study 1, 2-year-olds (N = 45, mean age = 651 days) heard two-word sequences consisting of a prime word followed by a noun, with two pictures appearing on the screen (depicting the noun and a distractor). Eye tracking showed that children looked more quickly at the noun picture for two-word sequences occurring an average of 19 times per million and 206 times per million in child-directed speech than for novel sequences. In Study 2, corpus analyses showed that 2-year-olds’ noun learning increased in line with the frequency of the two-word sequence that preceded it in caregiver speech utterances. This effect holds even after controlling nouns for frequency in caregiver speech, phonemic length, neighborhood density, phonotactic probability, and concreteness and after removing nouns produced in isolation by caregivers and nouns produced by children before being produced by caregivers. These studies show that young children’s language processing is facilitated by known two-word sequences, allowing children to focus on more novel aspects of the utterance. Such efficiencies are far-reaching because nearly two thirds of child-directed utterances contain two-word sequences with frequencies of 19 or more per million.

Neurodevelopment and asymmetry of auditory-related responses to repetitive syllabic stimuli in preterm neonates based on frequency-domain analysis

Sensory development of the human brain begins prenatally, allowing cortical auditory responses to be recorded at an early age in preterm infants. Despite several studies focusing on the temporal characteristics of preterm infants’ cortical responses, few have been conducted on frequency analysis of these responses. In this study, we performed frequency and coherence analysis of preterm infants’ auditory responses to series of syllables and also investigated the functional brain asymmetry of preterm infants for the detection of the regularity of auditory stimuli. Cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) were recorded in 16 preterm infants with a mean recording age of 31.48 weeks gestational age (29.57–34.14 wGA) in response to a repetitive syllabic stimulus. Peak amplitudes of the frequency response at the target frequency and the first harmonic, as well as the phase coherence (PC) at the target frequency were extracted as age-dependent variables. A functional asymmetry coefficient was defined as a lateralization index for the amplitude of the target frequency at each electrode site. While the findings revealed a significant positive correlation between the mean amplitude at the target frequency vs. age (R2 = 0.263, p = 0.042), no significant correlation was observed for age-related changes of the mean amplitude at the first harmonic. A significant correlation was also observed between the mean PC and age (R2 = 0.318, p = 0.023). A right hemisphere lateralization over many channels was also generally observed. The results demonstrate that rightward lateralization for slow rate modulation, previously observed in adults, children and newborns, appears to be in place at a very young age, even in preterm infants.

Tekst, teknologi og trope. Det tibetanske bedehjul

Trine Brox: Text, technology, trope
 Tibetan Buddhist practices include the engagement with Buddhist script in the form of tightly packed scrolls of paper that are placed in drums and spun in order to accumulate merit. On the scrolls are written or printed mantras (sacred or magic sounds in the form of a series of syllables) or dhāraṇīs (formula condensing lengthy texts or teachings). The receptacles containing such scrolls are the iconic prayer wheels, whose materiality enables and restricts particular modes of textual engagement. What kind of texts are these scrolls? How does one read texts that come in the form of tightly packed scrolls? They cannot be read by immersing oneself in the content of the text because its materiality restricts access to it. Instead it fits perfectly with the prayer wheel technology that allows circumambulatory recitation, the article argues.
 The prayer wheel is not only an important object in recitation practices for Tibetan Buddhists, but has also become a key marker of Tibetan identity. Yet its history, culture and practice have received very little scholarly attention. This article attempts to eradicate this blind spot. It endeavors to show how the prayer wheel has earned itself its iconic status by explaining how the prayer wheel is a receptacle of sacred script and a device for reciting sacred script. The article zooms in on (i) the cult of the book in the Tibetan culture sphere, (ii) the technology of prayer wheels; and (iii) the recurring tropes of the wheel, circumambulation, and rotation in Buddhism, as well as the merit connected with them. In view of this particular constellation of book cult, technology, and dominant trope, it makes sense that, first of all, Tibetan Buddhists have adopted and further developed a technology that optimizes interaction with sacred script; secondly, that rotation is considered an adequate way to interact with Buddha’s doctrine; and third, that this device has become an icon for the Tibetan civilization. It is especially the sacred text within the wheel, the article argues, that endows the prayer wheel with high status in a hierarchy of Buddhist material objects. Finally, this raises questions about modernized prayer wheels – when technological progress has enabled further development of devices that can contain and spin Buddhist script such as optic discs, prayer wheel apps, and automated praying machines. How does their materiality impact textual engagement?
 The article is based upon data produced through (i) ethnographic inquiry, such as interacting with the stakeholders who deal with Buddhist material culture for different reasons, e.g. producers, marketers, ritual specialists, practitioners, and consumers, and (ii) textual sources that includes Tibetan and English-language scholarship, catalogues, user’s guides, and marketing material. This multi-modal method has produced knowledge about the prayer wheel as practice, i.e. what we can call popular religion, and as theory, i.e. according to how the prayer wheel is idealized in the writings of Buddhist masters.

Apparent-talker height is influenced by Mandarin lexical tone

Apparent-talker height is determined by a talker's fundamental frequency (f0) and spectral information, typically indexed using formant frequencies (FFs). Barreda [(2017b). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 141, 4781-4792] reports that the apparent height of a talker can be influenced by vowel-specific variation in the f0 or FFs of a sound. In this experiment, native speakers of Mandarin were presented with a series of syllables produced by talkers of different apparent heights. Results indicate that there is substantial variability in the estimated height of a single talker based on lexical tone, as well as the inherent f0 and FFs of vowel phonemes.

Aerodynamic Characteristics of Syllable and Sentence Productions in Normal Speakers

Aerodynamic measures of subglottic air pressure (Ps) and airflow rate (AFR) are used to select behavioral voice therapy versus surgical treatment for voice disorders. However, these measures are usually taken during a series of syllables, which differs from conversational speech. Repeated syllables do not share the variation found in even simple sentences, and patients may use their best rather than typical voice unless specifically instructed otherwise. This study examined the potential differences in estimated Ps and AFR in syllable and sentence production and their effects on a measure of vocal efficiency in normal speakers. Prospective study. Measures of estimated Ps, AFR, and aerodynamic vocal efficiency (AVE) were obtained from 19 female and four male speakers ages 22-44 years with no history of voice disorders. Subjects repeated a series of /pa/ syllables and a sentence at comfortable effort level into a face mask with a pressure-sensing tube between the lips. AVE varies as a function of the speech material in normal subjects. Ps measures were significantly higher for the sentence-production samples than for the syllable-production samples. AFR was higher during sentence production than syllable production, but the difference was not statistically significant. AVE values were significantly higher for syllable versus sentence productions. The results suggest that subjects increase Ps and AFR in sentence compared with syllable production. Speaking task is a critical factor when considering measures of AVE, and this preliminary study provides a basis for further aerodynamic studies of patient populations.

The perceptual chunking of speech: A demonstration using ERPs

In tasks involving the learning of verbal or non-verbal sequences, groupings are spontaneously produced. These groupings are generally marked by a lengthening of final elements and have been attributed to a domain-general perceptual chunking linked to working memory. Yet, no study has shown how this domain-general chunking applies to speech processing, partly because of the traditional view that chunking involves a conceptual recoding of meaningful verbal items like words (Miller, 1956). The present study provides a demonstration of the perceptual chunking of speech by way of two experiments using evoked Positive Shifts (PSs), which capture on-line neural responses to marks of various groups. We observed listeners׳ response to utterances (Experiment 1) and meaningless series of syllables (Experiment 2) containing changing intonation and temporal marks, while also examining how these marks affect the recognition of heard items. The results show that, across conditions — and irrespective of the presence of meaningful items — PSs are specifically evoked by groups marked by lengthening. Moreover, this on-line detection of marks corresponds to characteristic grouping effects on listeners’ immediate recognition of heard items, which suggests chunking effects linked to working memory. These findings bear out a perceptual chunking of speech input in terms of groups marked by lengthening, which constitute the defining marks of a domain-general chunking.

Oral Pressure and Nasal Flow on /m/ and /p/ in 3- to 5-Year-Old Children without Cleft Palate

Objectives : (1) To compare oral pressure and nasal airflow in 3- to 5-year-olds versus older children and adults; (2) to describe stability of these measures in 3- to 5-year-olds at two recording times; and (3) to report participation rates of 3- to 5-year-olds for the aerodynamic protocol. Design : Prospective, nonrandomized, convenience samples in four age groups. Setting : University clinic. Participants : A total of 105 individuals without cleft palate and with normal speech for their age who were 3 to 5 (n = 45), 7 to 9 (n = 20), 11 to 13 (n = 20), or 20 to 30years old (n = 20). All had normal nasal resonance and absence of nasally obstructive conditions on the testing day. Main Outcome Measures : Oral pressure and nasal airflow on /p/ and /m/ in syllable series and the word "hamper." Results : Oral pressure was significantly higher on /p/ for 3- to 5-year-olds versus the two oldest groups. Nasal airflow on /p/ occurred infrequently across groups. Oral pressure on /m/ was significantly higher for 3- to 5-year-olds versus adults. Nasal airflow on /m/ increased significantly with age. Oral pressure and nasal flow did not differ at two measurement times for the 3- to 5-year-olds. Of the 3- to 5-year-olds, 88% completed the protocol. Conclusions : Oral pressure decreased on /p/ and nasal airflow increased on /m/ from early childhood into adulthood. Nasal air escape on /p/ occurred rarely for speakers of any age; when it did occur, the magnitude was limited. Most preschool-aged children should be able to complete a velopharyngeal aerodynamic protocol, and measures are stable even for these young speakers.

Song Description of Zubovski’s Bush-Cricket, Isophya Zubowskii (Orthoptera: Phaneropteridae)

Abstract The bush-cricket Isophya zubowskii Bey-Bienko, 1954 was surveyed in the period 2002- 2012 in 11 locations from Romania. The calling song, described hereby for the first time, consists of a long series of syllables, each formed by 85-118 impulses and lasting for 236-319 ms in the populations near Iaşi, while the individuals from three other populations in Southern Romania produce shorter syllables, consisting of 74-105 impulses and, lasting for 182-251 ms. Sound frequency ranges in the interval 10-40 kHz, with highest peak at about 18-26 kHz. Based on the description of its calling song, we conclude that Isophya zubowskii belongs to the Isophya kraussii species group.

Statistical speech segmentation and word learning in parallel: scaffolding from child-directed speech.

In order to acquire their native languages, children must learn richly structured systems with regularities at multiple levels. While structure at different levels could be learned serially, e.g., speech segmentation coming before word-object mapping, redundancies across levels make parallel learning more efficient. For instance, a series of syllables is likely to be a word not only because of high transitional probabilities, but also because of a consistently co-occurring object. But additional statistics require additional processing, and thus might not be useful to cognitively constrained learners. We show that the structure of child-directed speech makes simultaneous speech segmentation and word learning tractable for human learners. First, a corpus of child-directed speech was recorded from parents and children engaged in a naturalistic free-play task. Analyses revealed two consistent regularities in the sentence structure of naming events. These regularities were subsequently encoded in an artificial language to which adult participants were exposed in the context of simultaneous statistical speech segmentation and word learning. Either regularity was independently sufficient to support successful learning, but no learning occurred in the absence of both regularities. Thus, the structure of child-directed speech plays an important role in scaffolding speech segmentation and word learning in parallel.

Electrophysiological auditory responses and language development in infants with periventricular leukomalacia

This study presents evidence suggesting that electrophysiological responses to language-related auditory stimuli recorded at 46 weeks postconceptional age (PCA) are associated with language development, particularly in infants with periventricular leukomalacia (PVL). In order to investigate this hypothesis, electrophysiological responses to a set of auditory stimuli consisting of series of syllables and tones were recorded from a population of infants with PVL at 46 weeks PCA. A communicative development inventory (i.e., parent report) was applied to this population during a follow-up study performed at 14 months of age. The results of this later test were analyzed with a statistical clustering procedure, which resulted in two well-defined groups identified as the high-score (HS) and low-score (LS) groups. The event-induced power of the EEG data recorded at 46 weeks PCA was analyzed using a dimensionality reduction approach, resulting in a new set of descriptive variables. The LS and HS groups formed well-separated clusters in the space spanned by these descriptive variables, which can therefore be used to predict whether a new subject will belong to either of these groups. A predictive classification rate of 80% was obtained by using a linear classifier that was trained with a leave-one-out cross-validation technique.

Presence of preceding sound affects the neural representation of speech sounds: Behavioral data.

Traditionally, context‐sensitive speech perception has been demonstrated by eliciting shifts in target sound categorization through manipulation of the phonemic/spectral content of surrounding context. For example, changing the third formant frequency of a preceding context (from /al/ to /ar/) can result in significant shifts in target categorization (from /ga/ to /da/). However, it is probable that the most salient difference in context is between the presence or absence of any other sound. The question becomes whether this large change in context has substantial effects on target categorization as well. In the current study, participants were asked to categorize members of a series of syllables varying from /ga/ to /da/ presented in isolation or following /al/, /ar/, or /a/. The typical shifts in categorization were obtained for /al/ vsersus /ar/ contexts, but the shift in response between isolated presentation and any of the audible context conditions was much larger (with more /da/ responses in isolation). A similar pattern of results was obtained when the audible context was broadband noise. Additionally, slopes of categorization functions were less steep for isolated syllables than when preceded by speech. These results suggest that isolated syllables may be neurally encoded differently than the same syllables in context.

Presence of preceding sound affects the neural representation of speech sounds: Frequency following response data.

A substantial body of literature has focused on context effects in speech perception in which manipulation of the phonemic or spectral content of preceding sounds (e.g., /al/ versus /ar/) result in a shift in the perceptual categorization of a target syllable (e.g., /da/ versus /ga/). In a previous study utilizing the frequency‐following response (FFR) to measure neural correlates of these context effects [R. Aravamudhan, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 126, 2204], it was noted that the representation of target formant trajectories were much weaker when the stimulus was presented in isolation versus following some type of context. To examine this effect explicitly, a series of syllables varying from /da/ to /ga/ was presented to listeners either in isolation or following the syllables /a/, /al/, or /ar/ (with a 50‐ms silent gap between context and target). FFR measures were obtained from EEG recordings while participants listened passively. The resulting narrow‐band spectrograms over the grand averages demonstrated that the target formant representations were much weaker or absent when presented in isolation. This counter‐intuitive result may indicate the importance of context for robust encoding of important spectral features in speech and provide a cautionary note on the use of isolated syllables in auditory testing.

Contribution of the anterior insula to temporal auditory processing deficits in adolescents and adults with developmental dyslexia

Event Abstract Back to Event Contribution of the anterior insula to temporal auditory processing deficits in adolescents and adults with developmental dyslexia Claudia Steinbrink1*, Hermann Ackermann2, Thomas Lachmann1 and Axel Riecker3 1 University of Kaiserslautern, Department of Psychology II, Germany 2 University of Tuebingen, Department of General Neurology, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, Germany 3 University of Ulm, Department of Neurology, Germany Developmental dyslexia may result from general deficits concerning rapid temporal integration of acoustic stimuli. Assuming that the effort of auditory temporal processing of speech and non-speech stimuli increases with presentation rate, fMRI measurements were performed in dyslexics and controls during passive listening to series of syllables and click sounds using a parametric approach. Controls showed a decrease in hemodynamic brain activation in the right and an increase in the left anterior insula as a function of increasing presentation rate of click as well as syllable trains. By contrast, dyslexics exhibited this profile of hemodynamic activation in the click condition only. As concerns syllables, activation in dyslexics did not depend on presentation rate. Moreover, a subtraction analysis of hemodynamic main effects across conditions and groups revealed decreased activation of the left and right anterior insula in dyslexics as compared to controls in both the click and the syllable condition. These results indicate, in line with preceding studies, that in healthy adults the insular cortices are involved in auditory temporal processing of non-linguistic stimuli. Furthermore, they demonstrate that these operations of the intrasylvian cortex extend to the linguistic domain. Crucially, our data suggest that the anterior insula represents an important neural correlate of deficient temporal processing of speech and non-speech sounds in dyslexia. Conference: EARLI SIG22 - Neuroscience and Education, Zurich, Switzerland, 3 Jun - 5 Jun, 2010. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Language and reading Citation: Steinbrink C, Ackermann H, Lachmann T and Riecker A (2010). Contribution of the anterior insula to temporal auditory processing deficits in adolescents and adults with developmental dyslexia. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: EARLI SIG22 - Neuroscience and Education. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.11.00029 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: 31 May 2010; Published Online: 31 May 2010. * Correspondence: Claudia Steinbrink, University of Kaiserslautern, Department of Psychology II, Kaiserslautern, Germany, steinbrink@sowi.uni-kl.de 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 Claudia Steinbrink Hermann Ackermann Thomas Lachmann Axel Riecker Google Claudia Steinbrink Hermann Ackermann Thomas Lachmann Axel Riecker Google Scholar Claudia Steinbrink Hermann Ackermann Thomas Lachmann Axel Riecker PubMed Claudia Steinbrink Hermann Ackermann Thomas Lachmann Axel Riecker 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.

The emblematic script of the Aztec codices as a particular semiotic type of writing system

This paper addresses the use of emblems in the representation of language units in writing systems. The emblematic principle works in the early stages of writing as a transition to morphosyllabic writing; the Aztec manuscripts show the most typical examples of this. Phono-emblems function as subtitles or inscriptions to the pictorial compositions of common content. Language structure should be noted as one of the factors constraining the development of the Aztec script. It may be the polysynthesism of the structure of the Nahuatl language, which allows long series of syllables within an incorporative complex. Emblems are restricted to a certain number of positions, so they may not have been able to maintain the strict order of a morpheme row, as needed for predicative phrase; only name phrases with more transparent/predictable structure could be written phonetically. In modern writing, the emblematic principle is used along with the linearity principle: while the latter unrolls the text in the consequent order, the former represents hierarchic information as an integral graphic composition.

Learning to Sing

BEHAVIOR For full expression, language depends on an interplay between cognitive and motor skills. For example, people with a rare genetic form of developmental verbal dyspraxia have difficulty learning and producing the intricate, coordinated series of muscle movements necessary for speech, a result of a mutation in a brain transcription factor called FOXP2. In songbirds, this same protein is found in a brain region—area X—that is essential for the acquisition of the birds' characteristic song, which they learn under the close tutelage of an adult bird. Haesler et al . tested whether a deficit in FoxP2 would also produce communication deficits in zebra finches. They injected into area X a lentivirus vector carrying RNA interference sequences from FoxP2 , which reduced FoxP2 mRNA by 70%. After the 2-month tutoring period, the treated birds' songs—normally a stereotyped series of syllables that remains stable throughout adulthood—were missing syllables and contained inappropriately repeated segments (errors similar to those of humans with dyspraxia). Some of the sounds were also poor copies of their tutor's original. Thus, without sufficient FoxP2, normal developmental motor learning could not take place. The authors speculate that FoxP2 is necessary for structural and functional changes in area X neurons as birds learn their songs. — KK PLoS Biol. 5 , e321 (2007).