Syntax Processing Research Articles

Gender and number processing in Chinese learners of Spanish – Evidence from Event Related Potentials

Traditionally, age of acquisition (AoA) has been considered the single most important factor in second language (L2) acquisition and processing, particularly in the area of syntax processing. However, there is now growing evidence of the importance of other factors, such as the level of proficiency attained and the degree of overlap or similarity between the first language (L1) and L2 structures and possibility of transfer of features and/or processing routines. However, the relative importance of these factors and the nature of L1–L2 transfer are still unclear. To shed light on these issues, we recorded the electrical brain activity of a group of Chinese proficient late learners of Spanish, using the Event Related Potentials technique, while they read Spanish sentences containing violations of number and grammatical gender agreement (adjective–noun agreement and article–noun agreement). Unlike Spanish, Mandarin Chinese is an isolating language in which morphosyntactic features such as gender and number are not computed and so the ERP results from this group can help to clarify the role of L1–L2 transfer in morpho-syntax processing routines. The results included P600 effects for both gender and number agreement violations, with no differences between these disagreement conditions. These results are taken to support second language acquisition models which stress the roles of proficiency and L1–L2 transfer in L2 syntax processing.

Dynamic Causal Modeling of Subcortical Connectivity of Language

Subcortical-cortical interactions in the language network were investigated using dynamic causal modeling of magnetoencephalographic data recorded during auditory comprehension. Participants heard sentences that either were correct or contained violations. Sentences containing violations had syntactic or prosodic violations or both. We show that a hidden source, modeling magnetically silent deep nuclei, is required to explain the data best. This is in line with recent brain imaging studies and intracranial recordings suggesting an involvement of subcortical structures in language processing. Here, the processing of syntactic and prosodic violations elicited a global increase in the amplitude of evoked responses, both at the cortical and subcortical levels. As estimated by Bayesian model averaging, this was accompanied by various changes in cortical-cortical and subcortical-cortical connectivity. The most consistent findings in relation to violations were a decrease of reentrant inputs to Heschl's gyrus (HG) and of transcallosal lateral connections. These results suggest that in conditions where one hemisphere detects a violation, possibly via fast thalamocortical (HG) loops, the intercallosal connectivity is reduced to allow independent processing of syntax (left hemisphere) and of prosody (right hemisphere). This study is the first demonstration in cognitive neuroscience that subcortical-cortical loops can be empirically investigated using noninvasive electrophysiological recordings.

Neural dynamics during simultaneous processing of music and language

Event Abstract Back to Event Neural dynamics during simultaneous processing of music and language Elisa Carrus1*, Marcus Pearce1, Geraint Wiggins1 and Joydeep Bhattacharya1 1 Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom Neural mechanisms underlying the processing of music and language have received increasing attention in recent years. Electrophysiological research based on event-related potentials has suggested a possible overlap of resources involved in the processing of syntax in language and music (Koelsch et al., 2005). However, these studies relied exclusively on signal averaging techniques, which do not adequately represent oscillatory electrical brain activity. Aims: the primary aim of the study was to investigate the neural dynamics involved in simultaneous processing of language and melodies. Analyses of oscillatory responses as well as phase synchronization were carried out in order to understand the degree of locally and globally synchronized neuronal assemblies. Multivariate EEG signals were recorded while participants processed visually presented sentences and auditorily presented melodies. Expected or unexpected melodies occurred synchronously with four types of language sentences: correct, incorrect syntax, incongruous semantics, incorrect syntax and incongruous semantics. Music stimuli were built following a computational model developed by Pearce and Wiggins (2006). Melodies were either highly probable or highly improbable in the context of information content. A pattern of neural interactions between music and language processing was revealed suggesting shared neural resources in the processing of music and language. Keywords: Language, Music Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Neural Bases of Language Citation: Carrus E, Pearce M, Wiggins G and Bhattacharya J (2011). Neural dynamics during simultaneous processing of music and language. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00198 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: 21 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Elisa Carrus, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom, e.carrus@gmail.com 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 Elisa Carrus Marcus Pearce Geraint Wiggins Joydeep Bhattacharya Google Elisa Carrus Marcus Pearce Geraint Wiggins Joydeep Bhattacharya Google Scholar Elisa Carrus Marcus Pearce Geraint Wiggins Joydeep Bhattacharya PubMed Elisa Carrus Marcus Pearce Geraint Wiggins Joydeep Bhattacharya 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.

1080p 60 Hz Intra-Frame Video CODEC Chip Design and Its Implementation

This paper presents a 1080p 60 Hz intra-frame CODEC system for zero delay AV streaming. For high quality streaming, the proposed CODEC employs an RGB-domain inter-color compensation algorithm using strong correlation between RGB color components which was previously presented by the authors of this paper. The proposed CODEC architecture is based on macroblock-level pipelining and parallel processing to handle a significant pixel rate of 1080p 60 Hz videos with RGB 4:4:4 format, i.e., 3 Gbps. Since syntax processing is a bottleneck to supporting speeds of up to 100 Mbps in real-time, a high performance context-adaptive variable length coding architecture exploiting the look-ahead technique is included in the proposed design. Also, the number of syntax symbols is adaptively restricted to accomplish zero end-to-end delay. Finally, by using MPEG-2 TS as the AV stream format, compatibility with general channel chips is guaranteed. Using TSMC 90 nm CMOS technology, the prototype chip is implemented with 1,208 K logic gates and 359 Kb internal SRAM. The chip can achieve real-time encoding and decoding of 1080p 60 Hz videos at 200 MHz execution speed in typical work conditions.

What artificial grammar learning reveals about the neurobiology of syntax

In this paper we examine the neurobiological correlates of syntax, the processing of structured sequences, by comparing FMRI results on artificial and natural language syntax. We discuss these and similar findings in the context of formal language and computability theory. We used a simple right-linear unification grammar in an implicit artificial grammar learning paradigm in 32 healthy Dutch university students (natural language FMRI data were already acquired for these participants). We predicted that artificial syntax processing would engage the left inferior frontal region (BA 44/45) and that this activation would overlap with syntax-related variability observed in the natural language experiment. The main findings of this study show that the left inferior frontal region centered on BA 44/45 is active during artificial syntax processing of well-formed (grammatical) sequence independent of local subsequence familiarity. The same region is engaged to a greater extent when a syntactic violation is present and structural unification becomes difficult or impossible. The effects related to artificial syntax in the left inferior frontal region (BA 44/45) were essentially identical when we masked these with activity related to natural syntax in the same subjects. Finally, the medial temporal lobe was deactivated during this operation, consistent with the view that implicit processing does not rely on declarative memory mechanisms that engage the medial temporal lobe. In the context of recent FMRI findings, we raise the question whether Broca’s region (or subregions) is specifically related to syntactic movement operations or the processing of hierarchically nested non-adjacent dependencies in the discussion section. We conclude that this is not the case. Instead, we argue that the left inferior frontal region is a generic on-line sequence processor that unifies information from various sources in an incremental and recursive manner, independent of whether there are any processing requirements related to syntactic movement or hierarchically nested structures. In addition, we argue that the Chomsky hierarchy is not directly relevant for neurobiological systems.

Are left fronto-temporal brain areas a prerequisite for normal music-syntactic processing?

An increasing number of neuroimaging studies in music cognition research suggest that “language areas” are involved in the processing of musical syntax, but none of these studies clarified whether these areas are a prerequisite for normal syntax processing in music. The present electrophysiological experiment tested whether patients with lesions in Broca’s area ( N = 6) or in the left anterior temporal lobe ( N = 7) exhibit deficits in the processing of structure in music compared to matched healthy controls ( N = 13). A chord sequence paradigm was applied, and the amplitude and scalp topography of the Early Right Anterior Negativity (ERAN) was examined, an electrophysiological marker of musical syntax processing that correlates with activity in Broca’s area and its right hemisphere homotope. Left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) (but not anterior superior temporal gyrus – aSTG) patients with lesions older than 4 years showed an ERAN with abnormal scalp distribution, and subtle behavioural deficits in detecting music-syntactic irregularities. In one IFG patient tested 7 months post-stroke, the ERAN was extinguished and the behavioural performance remained at chance level. These combined results suggest that the left IFG, known to be crucial for syntax processing in language, plays also a functional role in the processing of musical syntax. Hence, the present findings are consistent with the notion that Broca’s area supports the processing of syntax in a rather domain-general way.

Influence of Absolute Pitch on Music Syntax Processing

Absolute pitch is defined as a unique ability to identify musical tones without external reference. Does pitch relation processing benefit from this ability? Miyazaki (1992, 1993) provided negative evidence suggesting that the poorer performances were observed in transposing musical intervals for absolute pitch possessors relative to the controls. Absolute pitch possessors also had difficulties in perceiving transposed melodies, whereas they performed better in the melodies played in the C major mode as compared to the controls (Miyazaki Rakowski, 2002). It is well known that music syntax highly reflects the relationship of pitch in tonal music. Does music syntax processing benefit from absolute pitch? The question was investigated in two experiments. All the participants were music education undergraduate students, who were recruited by means of advertisements. They were tested in the basic grouping rules of music syntax and segment music phrase structure in the current study. 31 absolute pitch possessors and 31 non-absolute pitch possessors as the controls were selected as the subjects for this study, who were matched in gender and musical background. Experiment 1 involving the basic grouping rules of music syntax focuses on examining the abilities to find tonality and mode, perceiving tendency of melodic pitches and harmonic functional progression. These musical stimuli were played in major keys with C, D, E, Eb, and C minor. Experiment 2 investigated the ability to segment phrase structure, concentrating on segmenting phrase and hierarchy level within phrase structure in four tonal music pieces. The music pieces were mainly played in C major. Results showed that AP possessors scored higher in the tasks of tonality and mode, tendency of melodic pitches and harmonic functional progression compared to the controls in Experiment 1. Furthermore, AP possessors performed better on segmenting phrase and hierarchy level within phrase structures. The findings indicated that the superiority of music syntax processing AP possessors showed may be attributed to their excellent pitch perceptions. In conclusion, absolute pitch may not be perfect in music sense, especially in transposing music processing. However, it goes without saying that AP possessors can identify a specified pitch without external reference due to their long-term pitch memories. For those AP possessors, music syntax processing may benefit from their exceptional memories, thus leading to the superiority of performances on the basic grouping rules of music syntax and segment phrase structure. However, this must be viewed as a tentative study, and more systematic investigation into this question is needed in future.

Is syntactic working memory language specific?

One question that has emerged from recent studies on sentence processing pertains to the nature of a specific cognitive mechanism implicated in maintenance of unintegrated syntactic information in ongoing sentence processing. In addition to evidence from language, recent research on musical syntax has suggested that processing of musical sequences may require a similar cognitive mechanism. In this paper evidence is discussed for the implication of syntactic working memory (SWM) in processing of language and musical syntax, arithmetic sequences, as well as in complex motor movements used with a specific expressive purpose. The idea is that an anticipatory structure-building component governs interpretation in each of these domains by processing relevant integrations within sequences of structurally dependent elements. The concept of SWM is anchored in representational modularity and the shared syntactic integration resources hypothesis, and empirically supported by neurophysiological and neuroimaging evidence.

Investigating language processing of syntax and prosody via dynamic causal modelling (DCM) on MEG data

Event Abstract Back to Event Investigating language processing of syntax and prosody via dynamic causal modelling (DCM) on MEG data Burkhard Maess1*, Olivier David2, Korinna Eckstein1 and Angela D. Friederici1 1 Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany 2 INSERM U836, Grenoble Institut des Neuroscience, France Our study investigated the interplay of syntactic and prosodic information processing during language comprehension. For this purpose, we conducted a MEG-study using spoken sentences which were either correct, syntactically incorrect, prosodically incorrect or both [1]. Averaged MEG data were subjected to DCM analysis. DCM priors for the activity centres were taken from previous functional imaging studies. We included six cortical regions in the analysis: Heschl’s gyrus (HG), the (anterior part of the) superior temporal cortex (STG) and the frontal opercular cortex (FOP) of both hemispheres. Recent studies have indicated the importance of the basal ganglia and the thalamus for language processing. Therefore, we also tested the influence of such a deep but magnetically silent source. According to current knowledge on the structural connectivity between these regions, we defined the following functional connections in all models: Within each hemisphere, HG connects to STG and STG to FOP. Fifteen different models, which differed with respect to their connections between the hemispheres and their connections to the thalamus, were tested. Model comparison supported most models which had connections to the thalamus from all six cortical regions and temporal as well as interhemispheric connections via the corpsus callosum between STG and FOP. Hence DCM modelling stresses the role of the thalamo-cortical loop as a modulator of the STG and FOP crosstalks within as well as between the hemispheres. For syntactic violations, a significant increase in connectivity strength was observed mostly for the left hemispheric connections to the thalamus. Prosodic incongruencies strengthened STG-Thalamus connections while also weakening the direct interhemispheric connection. In conclusion, using DCM, we were able to model the spatio-temporal evolution of brain activity during language processing. Furthermore, the crucial role of the thalamus within the language network was demonstrated.

A Neuroscientific Perspective on Music Therapy

During the last years, a number of studies demonstrated that music listening (and even more so music production) activates a multitude of brain structures involved in cognitive, sensorimotor, and emotional processing. For example, music engages sensory processes, attention, memory-related processes, perception-action mediation ("mirror neuron system" activity), multisensory integration, activity changes in core areas of emotional processing, processing of musical syntax and musical meaning, and social cognition. It is likely that the engagement of these processes by music can have beneficial effects on the psychological and physiological health of individuals, although the mechanisms underlying such effects are currently not well understood. This article gives a brief overview of factors contributing to the effects of music-therapeutic work. Then, neuroscientific studies using music to investigate emotion, perception-action mediation ("mirror function"), and social cognition are reviewed, including illustrations of the relevance of these domains for music therapy.

Overlap of Musical and Linguistic Syntax Processing: Intracranial ERP Evidence

The present study investigated the co-localization of musical and linguistic syntax processing in the human brain. EEGs were recorded from subdural electrodes placed on the left and right perisylvian cortex. The neural generators of the early potentials elicited by syntactic errors in music and language were localized by means of distributed source modeling and compared within subjects. The combined results indicated a partial overlap of the sources within the bilateral superior temporal gyrus, and, to a lesser extent, in the left inferior frontal gyrus, qualifying these areas as shared anatomic substrates of early syntactic error detection in music and language.

Musical training modulates the development of syntax processing in children

The question of how musical training can influence perceptual and cognitive abilities of children has been the subject of numerous past studies. However, evidence showing which neural mechanisms underlie changes in cognitive skills in another domain following musical training has remained sparse. Syntax processing in language and music has been shown to rely on overlapping neural resources, and this study compared the neural correlates of language- and music-syntactic processing between children with and without long-term musical training. Musically trained children had larger amplitudes of the ERAN (early right anterior negativity), elicited by music-syntactic irregularities. Furthermore, the ELAN (early left anterior negativity), a neurophysiological marker of syntax processing in language, was more strongly developed in these children, and they furthermore had an enlarged amplitude of a later negativity, assumed to reflect more sustained syntax processing. Thus, our data suggest that the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying syntax processing in music and language are developed earlier, and more strongly, in children with musical training.

The role of noun syntax in spoken word production: Evidence from aphasia

We describe MH who presents with agrammatic aphasia and anomia, and who produces semantic errors in the absence of a central semantic impairment. This pattern of performance implies damage to syntactic processes operating between semantics and phonological output. Damage here may lead to lexical selection errors and a deficit in combining words to form phrases.We investigated MH's knowledge and processing of noun syntax in mass and count nouns. She produced more count nouns than mass nouns. She showed impaired knowledge of noun syntax in judgement tasks and production tasks, with mass noun syntax being more impaired than count.We interpret these results in terms of a two-stage model of lexical retrieval. We propose that syntactic information represented at the lemma level is activated even in bare noun production, and can be differentially impaired across noun categories. That same damage can lead to semantic errors in production. For MH limited syntactic options are available to support production, and these favour count noun production. The data provide a new account of output semantic errors.

Making psycholinguistics musical: Self-paced reading time evidence for shared processing of linguistic and musical syntax

Linguistic processing, especially syntactic processing, is often considered a hallmark of human cognition; thus, the domain specificity or domain generality of syntactic processing has attracted considerable debate. The present experiments address this issue by simultaneously manipulating syntactic processing demands in language and music. Participants performed self-paced reading of garden path sentences, in which structurally unexpected words cause temporary syntactic processing difficulty. A musical chord accompanied each sentence segment, with the resulting sequence forming a coherent chord progression. When structurally unexpected words were paired with harmonically unexpected chords, participants showed substantially enhanced garden path effects. No such interaction was observed when the critical words violated semantic expectancy or when the critical chords violated timbral expectancy. These results support a prediction of the shared syntactic integration resource hypothesis (Patel, 2003), which suggests that music and language draw on a common pool of limited processing resources for integrating incoming elements into syntactic structures. Notations of the stimuli from this study may be downloaded from pbr.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

Amygdala activity can be modulated by unexpected chord functions during music listening

Numerous earlier studies have investigated the cognitive processing of musical syntax with regular and irregular chord sequences. However, irregular sequences may also be perceived as unexpected, and therefore have a different emotional valence than regular sequences. We provide behavioral data showing that irregular chord functions presented in chord sequence paradigms are perceived as less pleasant than regular sequences. A reanalysis of functional MRI data showed increased blood oxygen level-dependent signal changes bilaterally in the amygdala in response to music-syntactically irregular (compared with regular) chord functions. The combined data indicate that music-syntactically irregular events elicit brain activity related to emotional processes, and that, in addition to intensely pleasurable music or highly unpleasant music, single chord functions can also modulate amygdala activity.

Children with Specific Language Impairment Also Show Impairment of Music-syntactic Processing

Both language and music consist of sequences that are structured according to syntactic regularities. We used two specific event-related brain potential (ERP) components to investigate music-syntactic processing in children: the ERAN (early right anterior negativity) and the N5. The neural resources underlying these processes have been posited to overlap with those involved in the processing of linguistic syntax. Thus, we expected children with specific language impairment (SLI, which is characterized by deficient processing of linguistic syntax) to demonstrate difficulties with music-syntactic processing. Such difficulties were indeed observed in the neural correlates of music-syntactic processing: neither an ERAN nor an N5 was elicited in children with SLI, whereas both components were evoked in age-matched control children with typical language development. Moreover, the amplitudes of ERAN and N5 were correlated with subtests of a language development test. These data provide evidence for a strong interrelation between the language and the music processing system, thereby setting the ground for possible effects of musical training in SLI therapy.

Language and Music: What do they have in Common and how do they Differ? A Neuroscientific Approach

The concept of two largely independent systems, with strict left hemisphere lateralization of language and predominantly right lateralization of music is being challenged by the alternative view that language and music are closely related cognitive and neural systems with complex constellations of sub-processes, some of which are shared, and others that are not. Neurophysiologic data demonstrating similar syntax and semantics processing together with similarities in the development of the two domains in the infant brain support that language and music have much in common and complement each other. Close interaction between the two hemispheres is needed for optimal functioning of both language and music. Thus, the right hemisphere has an important role for understanding complex natural language such as stories and metaphors. Learning to read, write and musical training induces functional and anatomical changes in functionally relevant connections, and modifies hemispheric asymmetries for specific functions. Comparative research on music and language provides a way to study basic brain mechanisms and how the brain transfers acoustic stimuli into the unique human abilities for language and music, and may help bridge the divide between the sciences and the humanities.

FMRI/ERP of musical syntax: comparison of melodies and unstructured note sequences

To date, the neural correlates of musical syntax processing have been investigated mainly by means of paradigms in which isolated chords are made incongruent with the harmonic context. Here, we present results obtained contrasting unfamiliar one-part piano melodies with unstructured note sequences, comparable in pitch and rhythm but devoid of any syntactic structure. This paradigm indexes a superset of the cognitive functions involved in processing of harmonic rules. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, differential activation of a bilateral cortical network comprising the inferior frontal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus and premotor cortex was found. Using event-related potentials, the N2 evoked by each note in melodies was found to have longer latency and a more frontal distribution than that evoked in unstructured sequences.

The inferior frontal cortex in artificial syntax processing: An rTMS study

The human capacity to implicitly acquire knowledge of structured sequences has recently been investigated in artificial grammar learning using functional magnetic resonance imaging. It was found that the left inferior frontal cortex (IFC; Brodmann's area (BA) 44/45) was related to classification performance. The objective of this study was to investigate whether the IFC (BA 44/45) is causally related to classification of artificial syntactic structures by means of an off-line repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) paradigm. We manipulated the stimulus material in a 2 × 2 factorial design with grammaticality status and local substring familiarity as factors. The participants showed a reliable effect of grammaticality on classification of novel items after 5days of exposure to grammatical exemplars without performance feedback in an implicit acquisition task. The results show that rTMS of BA 44/45 improves syntactic classification performance by increasing the rejection rate of non-grammatical items and by shortening reaction times of correct rejections specifically after left-sided stimulation. A similar pattern of results is observed in FMRI experiments on artificial syntactic classification. These results suggest that activity in the inferior frontal region is causally related to artificial syntax processing.

Issues and Trends in American Annals of the Deaf Publications 2001 to 2007

In 2001 the American Annals of the Deaf published reviews of all literacy-related articles (Moores and Miller, 2001) and all other instruction-related articles (Moores, Jatho, & Creech, 2001) covering 1996 to 2000 inclusively. Twenty articles dealing with literacy were identified. A major trend was a move away from what had been the dominant Whole Language approach to a more eclectic analytic orientation, with added emphasis on drill and practice, written repetition, instruction on phonological bases of language, use of bridge lists, and reliance on both American Sign Language (ASL) and English-based signing. Problems with the processing and production of English syntax remained regardless of curriculum, mode of instruction, and language used in the classroom. Despite the existence of excellent research on captioning, it was problematic for many deaf readers to take advantage of developments if basic barriers to literacy remain. Forty-six articles addressing instruction in non-literacy areas were identified and classified as follows: 1. Teacher/Professional Preparation 2. Teacher Characteristics 3. Modes of Instruction/Communication 4. Content/Curriculum 5. Placement 6. Student Characteristics A major concern was an almost complete lack of attention to content areas. Only three articles over the 5-year period addressed mathematics and there were none for science or social studies instruction. First-year teachers appeared to be satisfied with their training, although there was concern that the field is not preparing professionals to work in itinerant placements. A scarcity of highly trained personnel for faculty and administrative positions was noted, with implications for future programs. Given the numbers of deaf students with overlays of mild, moderate, and severe disabilities, there was inadequate attention devoted to the needs of these children. There was a similar lack of information on addressing the special needs of children identified as having minority identification. As a result of the reviews it was decided that die Annals should make an effort to encourage submission of manuscripts in several areas. First would be a push to have an increase in the number of submissions related to academic content, a difficult undertaking given the centuries-old concentration on reading. This, of course has taken on added importance due to the passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation subsequent to the publication of die reviews mandating access to and success in the general curriculum. Odier critical areas involve the impact of major changes in student characteristics, academic placement, die rapid spread of surgical techniques such as cochlear implants, and the growing diversity of the deaf population. The response to the two articles covering the period from 1996 to 2000 was positive. They provided readers basic information about articles aggregated by category over a 5-year period. Readers could then go on to read appropriate articles for detail. The two reviews included somewhat more than one-half of all of the articles published in the Annals from 1996 to 2000. For this article, covering the seven years from 2001 to 2007, we decided to include all 183 articles in order to present a more complete picture of the journal's publications. Aware that some articles would fit within two or more categories, we nevertheless assigned each article to one of the following descriptors: 1. Instruction 2. Teacher/Professional Characteristics 3. Teacher preparation 4. Social/Social-Emotional 5. Health and Medical 6. Vocational 7. Cultural More than 100 articles fell within the Instruction category, with approximately one-third concerned with literacy. We subdivided Instruction as follows 1. Literacy 2. Communication, Academic Piacement, and Technology 3. Academic Content and Related Academic Content 4. …