@misc{OffredeJacobiReberniketal.2020, author = {Offrede, Tom F. and Jacobi, Jidde and Rebernik, Teja and de Jong, Lisanne and Keulen, Stefanie and Veenstra, Pauline and Noiray, Aude and Wieling, Martijn}, title = {The impact of alcohol on L1 versus L2}, series = {Zweitver{\"o}ffentlichungen der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Zweitver{\"o}ffentlichungen der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {3}, issn = {1866-8364}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-54095}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-540955}, pages = {14}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Alcohol intoxication is known to affect many aspects of human behavior and cognition; one of such affected systems is articulation during speech production. Although much research has revealed that alcohol negatively impacts pronunciation in a first language (L1), there is only initial evidence suggesting a potential beneficial effect of inebriation on articulation in a non-native language (L2). The aim of this study was thus to compare the effect of alcohol consumption on pronunciation in an L1 and an L2. Participants who had ingested different amounts of alcohol provided speech samples in their L1 (Dutch) and L2 (English), and native speakers of each language subsequently rated the pronunciation of these samples on their intelligibility (for the L1) and accent nativelikeness (for the L2). These data were analyzed with generalized additive mixed modeling. Participants' blood alcohol concentration indeed negatively affected pronunciation in L1, but it produced no significant effect on the L2 accent ratings. The expected negative impact of alcohol on L1 articulation can be explained by reduction in fine motor control. We present two hypotheses to account for the absence of any effects of intoxication on L2 pronunciation: (1) there may be a reduction in L1 interference on L2 speech due to decreased motor control or (2) alcohol may produce a differential effect on each of the two linguistic subsystems.}, language = {en} } @article{OffredeJacobiReberniketal.2020, author = {Offrede, Tom F. and Jacobi, Jidde and Rebernik, Teja and de Jong, Lisanne and Keulen, Stefanie and Veenstra, Pauline and Noiray, Aude and Wieling, Martijn}, title = {The impact of alcohol on L1 versus L2}, series = {Language and Speech}, volume = {64}, journal = {Language and Speech}, number = {3}, publisher = {SAGE Publications}, address = {Thousand Oaks}, issn = {1756-6053}, doi = {10.1177/0023830920953169}, pages = {681 -- 692}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Alcohol intoxication is known to affect many aspects of human behavior and cognition; one of such affected systems is articulation during speech production. Although much research has revealed that alcohol negatively impacts pronunciation in a first language (L1), there is only initial evidence suggesting a potential beneficial effect of inebriation on articulation in a non-native language (L2). The aim of this study was thus to compare the effect of alcohol consumption on pronunciation in an L1 and an L2. Participants who had ingested different amounts of alcohol provided speech samples in their L1 (Dutch) and L2 (English), and native speakers of each language subsequently rated the pronunciation of these samples on their intelligibility (for the L1) and accent nativelikeness (for the L2). These data were analyzed with generalized additive mixed modeling. Participants' blood alcohol concentration indeed negatively affected pronunciation in L1, but it produced no significant effect on the L2 accent ratings. The expected negative impact of alcohol on L1 articulation can be explained by reduction in fine motor control. We present two hypotheses to account for the absence of any effects of intoxication on L2 pronunciation: (1) there may be a reduction in L1 interference on L2 speech due to decreased motor control or (2) alcohol may produce a differential effect on each of the two linguistic subsystems.}, language = {en} } @misc{vonderMalsburgPoppelsLevy2020, author = {von der Malsburg, Titus Raban and Poppels, Till and Levy, Roger P.}, title = {Implicit gender bias in linguistic descriptions for expected events}, series = {Zweitver{\"o}ffentlichungen der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Zweitver{\"o}ffentlichungen der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {2}, issn = {1866-8364}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-51615}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-516154}, pages = {16}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Gender stereotypes influence subjective beliefs about the world, and this is reflected in our use of language. But do gender biases in language transparently reflect subjective beliefs? Or is the process of translating thought to language itself biased? During the 2016 United States (N = 24,863) and 2017 United Kingdom (N = 2,609) electoral campaigns, we compared participants' beliefs about the gender of the next head of government with their use and interpretation of pronouns referring to the next head of government. In the United States, even when the female candidate was expected to win, she pronouns were rarely produced and induced substantial comprehension disruption. In the United Kingdom, where the incumbent female candidate was heavily favored, she pronouns were preferred in production but yielded no comprehension advantage. These and other findings suggest that the language system itself is a source of implicit biases above and beyond previously known biases, such as those measured by the Implicit Association Test.}, language = {en} } @article{vonderMalsburgPoppelsLevy2020, author = {von der Malsburg, Titus Raban and Poppels, Till and Levy, Roger P.}, title = {Implicit gender bias in linguistic descriptions for expected events}, series = {Psychological Science}, volume = {31}, journal = {Psychological Science}, number = {2}, publisher = {Sage}, address = {London}, issn = {0956-7976}, doi = {10.1177/0956797619890619}, pages = {115 -- 128}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Gender stereotypes influence subjective beliefs about the world, and this is reflected in our use of language. But do gender biases in language transparently reflect subjective beliefs? Or is the process of translating thought to language itself biased? During the 2016 United States (N = 24,863) and 2017 United Kingdom (N = 2,609) electoral campaigns, we compared participants' beliefs about the gender of the next head of government with their use and interpretation of pronouns referring to the next head of government. In the United States, even when the female candidate was expected to win, she pronouns were rarely produced and induced substantial comprehension disruption. In the United Kingdom, where the incumbent female candidate was heavily favored, she pronouns were preferred in production but yielded no comprehension advantage. These and other findings suggest that the language system itself is a source of implicit biases above and beyond previously known biases, such as those measured by the Implicit Association Test.}, language = {en} } @article{HoehleFritzscheMessetal.2020, author = {H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Fritzsche, Tom and Meß, Katharina and Philipp, Mareike and Gafos, Adamantios I.}, title = {Only the right noise?}, series = {Developmental Science}, volume = {23}, journal = {Developmental Science}, number = {5}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {1363-755X}, doi = {10.1111/desc.12950}, pages = {1 -- 16}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Seminal work by Werker and colleagues (Stager \& Werker [1997]Nature, 388, 381-382) has found that 14-month-old infants do not show evidence for learning minimal pairs in the habituation-switch paradigm. However, when multiple speakers produce the minimal pair in acoustically variable ways, infants' performance improves in comparison to a single speaker condition (Rost \& McMurray [2009]Developmental Science, 12, 339-349). The current study further extends these results and assesses how different kinds of input variability affect 14-month-olds' minimal pair learning in the habituation-switch paradigm testing German learning infants. The first two experiments investigated word learning when the labels were spoken by a single speaker versus when the labels were spoken by multiple speakers. In the third experiment we studied whether non-acoustic variability, implemented by visual variability of the objects presented together with the labels, would also affect minimal pair learning. We found enhanced learning in the multiple speakers compared to the single speaker condition, confirming previous findings with English-learning infants. In contrast, visual variability of the presented objects did not support learning. These findings both confirm and better delimit the beneficial role of speech-specific variability in minimal pair learning. Finally, we review different proposals on the mechanisms via which variability confers benefits to learning and outline what may be likely principles that underlie this benefit. We highlight among these the multiplicity of acoustic cues signalling phonemic contrasts and the presence of relations among these cues. It is in these relations where we trace part of the source for the apparent paradoxical benefit of variability in learning.}, language = {en} } @misc{HoehleFritzscheMessetal.2020, author = {H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Fritzsche, Tom and Meß, Katharina and Philipp, Mareike and Gafos, Adamantios I.}, title = {Only the right noise?}, series = {Zweitver{\"o}ffentlichungen der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Zweitver{\"o}ffentlichungen der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {5}, issn = {1866-8364}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-51667}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-516674}, pages = {18}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Seminal work by Werker and colleagues (Stager \& Werker [1997]Nature, 388, 381-382) has found that 14-month-old infants do not show evidence for learning minimal pairs in the habituation-switch paradigm. However, when multiple speakers produce the minimal pair in acoustically variable ways, infants' performance improves in comparison to a single speaker condition (Rost \& McMurray [2009]Developmental Science, 12, 339-349). The current study further extends these results and assesses how different kinds of input variability affect 14-month-olds' minimal pair learning in the habituation-switch paradigm testing German learning infants. The first two experiments investigated word learning when the labels were spoken by a single speaker versus when the labels were spoken by multiple speakers. In the third experiment we studied whether non-acoustic variability, implemented by visual variability of the objects presented together with the labels, would also affect minimal pair learning. We found enhanced learning in the multiple speakers compared to the single speaker condition, confirming previous findings with English-learning infants. In contrast, visual variability of the presented objects did not support learning. These findings both confirm and better delimit the beneficial role of speech-specific variability in minimal pair learning. Finally, we review different proposals on the mechanisms via which variability confers benefits to learning and outline what may be likely principles that underlie this benefit. We highlight among these the multiplicity of acoustic cues signalling phonemic contrasts and the presence of relations among these cues. It is in these relations where we trace part of the source for the apparent paradoxical benefit of variability in learning.}, language = {en} } @article{GianelliKuehneLoPrestietal.2020, author = {Gianelli, Claudia and K{\"u}hne, Katharina and Lo Presti, Sara and Mencaraglia, Silvia and Dalla Volta, Riccardo}, title = {Action processing in the motor system}, series = {Brain and cognition : a journal of experimental and clinical research}, volume = {139}, journal = {Brain and cognition : a journal of experimental and clinical research}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {San Diego}, issn = {0278-2626}, doi = {10.1016/j.bandc.2019.105510}, pages = {10}, year = {2020}, abstract = {In two experiments, we compared the dynamics of corticospinal excitability when processing visually or linguistically presented tool-oriented hand actions in native speakers and sequential bilinguals. In a third experiment we used the same procedure to test non-motor, low-level stimuli, i.e. scrambled images and pseudo-words. Stimuli were presented in sequence: pictures (tool + tool-oriented hand action or their scrambled counterpart) and words (tool noun + tool-action verb or pseudo-words). Experiment 1 presented German linguistic stimuli to native speakers, while Experiment 2 presented English stimuli to non-natives. Experiment 3 tested Italian native speakers. Single-pulse trascranial magnetic stimulation (spTMS) was applied to the left motor cortex at five different timings: baseline, 200 ms after tool/noun onset, 150, 350 and 500 ms after hand/verb onset with motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) recorded from the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) and abductor digiti minimi (ADM) muscles. We report strong similarities in the dynamics of corticospinal excitability across the visual and linguistic modalities. MEPs' suppression started as early as 150 ms and lasted for the duration of stimulus presentation (500 ms). Moreover, we show that this modulation is absent for stimuli with no motor content. Overall, our study supports the notion of a core, overarching system of action semantics shared by different modalities.}, language = {en} } @article{SotiropoulouGibsonGafos2020, author = {Sotiropoulou, Stavroula and Gibson, Mark and Gafos, Adamantios I.}, title = {Global organization in Spanish onsets}, series = {Journal of phonetics}, volume = {82}, journal = {Journal of phonetics}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {London}, issn = {0095-4470}, doi = {10.1016/j.wocn.2020.100995}, pages = {22}, year = {2020}, abstract = {This paper addresses the relation between syllable structure and inter-segmental temporal coordination. The data examined are Electromagnetic Articulometry recordings from six speakers of Central Peninsular Spanish (henceforth, Spanish), producing words beginning with the clusters /pl, bl, kl, gl, p(sic), k(sic), t(sic)/ as well as corresponding unclustered sonorant-initial words in three vowel contexts /a, e, o/. In our results, we find evidence for a global organization of the segments involved in these combinations. This is reflected in a number of ways: shortening of the prevocalic sonorant in the cluster-initial case compared to the unclustered case, reorganization of the relative timing of the internal CV subsequence (in a CCV) in the obstruent-lateral context, early vowel initiation, and a strong compensatory relation between the duration of the obstruent-to-lateral transition and the duration of the lateral. In other words, we find that the global organization presiding over the segments partaking in these tautosyllabic CCVs is pleiotropic, that is, simultaneously expressed over a set of different phonetic parameters rather than via a privileged metric such as c-center stability or any other such given single measure (employed in prior works).}, language = {en} } @article{NicenboimVasishthRoesler2020, author = {Nicenboim, Bruno and Vasishth, Shravan and R{\"o}sler, Frank}, title = {Are words pre-activated probabilistically during sentence comprehension?}, series = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, volume = {142}, journal = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, publisher = {Elsevier Science}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0028-3932}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107427}, pages = {27}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Several studies (e.g., Wicha et al., 2003b; DeLong et al., 2005) have shown that readers use information from the sentential context to predict nouns (or some of their features), and that predictability effects can be inferred from the EEG signal in determiners or adjectives appearing before the predicted noun. While these findings provide evidence for the pre-activation proposal, recent replication attempts together with inconsistencies in the results from the literature cast doubt on the robustness of this phenomenon. Our study presents the first attempt to use the effect of gender on predictability in German to study the pre-activation hypothesis, capitalizing on the fact that all German nouns have a gender and that their preceding determiners can show an unambiguous gender marking when the noun phrase has accusative case. Despite having a relatively large sample size (of 120 subjects), both our preregistered and exploratory analyses failed to yield conclusive evidence for or against an effect of pre-activation. The sign of the effect is, however, in the expected direction: the more unexpected the gender of the determiner, the larger the negativity. The recent, inconclusive replication attempts by Nieuwland et al. (2018) and others also show effects with signs in the expected direction. We conducted a Bayesian random-ef-fects meta-analysis using our data and the publicly available data from these recent replication attempts. Our meta-analysis shows a relatively clear but very small effect that is consistent with the pre-activation account and demonstrates a very important advantage of the Bayesian data analysis methodology: we can incrementally accumulate evidence to obtain increasingly precise estimates of the effect of interest.}, language = {en} } @article{ReifegersteJarvisFelser2020, author = {Reifegerste, Jana and Jarvis, Rebecca and Felser, Claudia}, title = {Effects of chronological age on native and nonnative sentence processing}, series = {Journal of memory and language}, volume = {111}, journal = {Journal of memory and language}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam [u.a.]}, issn = {0749-596X}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2019.104083}, pages = {23}, year = {2020}, abstract = {While much attention has been devoted to the cognition of aging multilingual individuals, little is known about how age affects their grammatical processing. We assessed subject-verb number-agreement processing in sixty native (L1) and sixty non-native (L2) speakers of German (age: 18-84) using a binary-choice sentence-completion task, along with various individual-differences tests. Our results revealed differential effects of age on L1 and L2 speakers' accuracy and reaction times (RTs). L1 speakers' RTs increased with age, and they became more susceptible to attraction errors. In contrast, L2 speakers' RTs decreased, once age-related slowing was controlled for, and their overall accuracy increased. We interpret this as resulting from increased L2 exposure. Moreover, L2 speakers' accuracy/RT patterns were more strongly affected by cognitive variables (working memory, interference control) than L1 speakers'. Our findings show that as regards bilinguals' grammatical processing ability, aging is associated with both gains (in experience) and losses (in cognitive abilities).}, language = {en} }