| 1. |
- Egorova, Natalia, et al.
(författare)
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Neural Dynamics of Speech Act Comprehension: An MEG Study of Naming and Requesting
- 2014
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Ingår i: Brain Topography. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0896-0267 .- 1573-6792. ; 27:3, s. 375-392
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The neurobiological basis and temporal dynamics of communicative language processing pose important yet unresolved questions. It has previously been suggested that comprehension of the communicative function of an utterance, i.e. the so-called speech act, is supported by an ensemble of neural networks, comprising lexico-semantic, action and mirror neuron as well as theory of mind circuits, all activated in concert. It has also been demonstrated that recognition of the speech act type occurs extremely rapidly. These findings however, were obtained in experiments with insufficient spatio-temporal resolution, thus possibly concealing important facets of the neural dynamics of the speech act comprehension process. Here, we used magnetoencephalography to investigate the comprehension of Naming and Request actions performed with utterances controlled for physical features, psycholinguistic properties and the probability of occurrence in variable contexts. The results show that different communicative actions are underpinned by a dynamic neural network, which differentiates between speech act types very early after the speech act onset. Within 50-90 ms, Requests engaged mirror-neuron action-comprehension systems in sensorimotor cortex, possibly for processing action knowledge and intentions. Still, within the first 200 ms of stimulus onset (100-150 ms), Naming activated brain areas involved in referential semantic retrieval. Subsequently (200-300 ms), theory of mind and mentalising circuits were activated in medial prefrontal and temporo-parietal areas, possibly indexing processing of intentions and assumptions of both communication partners. This cascade of stages of processing information about actions and intentions, referential semantics, and theory of mind may underlie dynamic and interactive speech act comprehension.
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| 2. |
- Gosselke Berthelsen, Sabine, et al.
(författare)
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Different neural mechanisms for rapid acquisition of words with grammatical tone in learners from tonal and non-tonal backgrounds : ERP evidence
- 2020
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Ingår i: Brain Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-8993. ; 1729
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Initial second language acquisition proceeds surprisingly quickly. Foreign words can sometimes be used within minutes after the first exposure. Yet, it is unclear whether such rapid learning also takes place for more complex, multi-layered properties like words with complex morphosyntax and/or tonal features, and whether it is influenced by transfer from the learners’ native language. To address these questions, we recorded tonal and non-tonal learners’ brain responses while they acquired novel tonal words with grammatical gender and number on two consecutive days. Comparing the novel words to repeated but non-taught pseudoword controls, we found that tonal learners demonstrated a full range of early and late event-related potentials in novel tonal word processing: an early word recognition component (~50 ms), an early left anterior negativity (ELAN), a left anterior negativity (LAN), and a P600. Non-tonal learners exhibited mainly late processing when accessing the meaning of the tonal words: a P600, as well as a LAN after an overnight consolidation. Yet, this group displayed correlations between pitch perception abilities and ELAN, and between acquisition accuracy and LAN, suggesting that certain features may lead to facilitated processing of tonal words in non-tonal learners. Furthermore, the two groups displayed indistinguishable performance at the behavioural level, clearly suggesting that the same learning outcome may be achieved through at least partially different neural mechanisms. Overall, the results suggest that it is possible to rapidly acquire words with grammatical tone and that transfer plays an important role even in very early second language acquisition.
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| 3. |
- Gosselke Berthelsen, Sabine, et al.
(författare)
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Native language experience shapes pre-attentive foreign tone processing and guides rapid memory trace build-up : An ERP study
- 2022
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Ingår i: Psychophysiology. - : Wiley. - 0048-5772 .- 1469-8986. ; 59:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Language experience, particularly from our native language (L1), shapes our perception of other languages around us. The present study examined how L1 experience moulds the initial processing of foreign (L2) tone during acquisition. In particular, we investigated whether learners were able to rapidly forge new neural memory traces for novel tonal words, which was tracked by recording learners’ ERP responses during two word acquisition sessions. We manipulated the degree of L1–L2 familiarity by comparing learners with a nontonal L1 (German) and a tonal L1 (Swedish) and by using tones that were similar (fall) or dissimilar (high, low, rise) to those occurring in Swedish. Our results indicate that a rapid, pre-attentive memory trace build-up for tone manifests in an early ERP component at ~50 ms but only at particularly high levels of L1–L2 similarity. Specifically, early processing was facilitated for an L2 tone that had a familiar pitch shape (fall) and word-level function (inflection). This underlines the importance of these L1 properties for the early processing of L2 tone. In comparison, a later anterior negativity related to the processing of the tones’ grammatical content was unaffected by native language experience but was instead influenced by lexicality, pitch prominence, entrenchment, and successful learning. Behaviorally, learning effects emerged for all learners and tone types, regardless of L1–L2 familiarity or pitch prominence. Together, the findings suggest that while L1-based facilitation effects occur, they mainly affect early processing stages and do not necessarily result in more successful L2 acquisition at behavioral level.
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| 4. |
- Gosselke Berthelsen, Sabine, et al.
(författare)
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Neural processing of morphosyntactic tonal cues in second-language learners
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Neurolinguistics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0911-6044. ; 45, s. 60-78
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The morphosyntactic nature of word accents in Swedish makes them a perfect candidate for the study of predictive processing in language. The association of word stem accents with upcoming suffixes allows native listeners to pre-activate a word's potential ending and thereby facilitate speech processing. Unlike native speakers, second language learners are known to be less able to use prediction in their L2s. This is presumably due in particular to competing information from the learners' L1 and a poorer exposure to the relevant L2 information. Swedish word accents, however, are abundant in the input and rare cross-linguistically, making them ideal for studying the implicit acquisition of linguistic prediction in beginner L2 learners. We therefore recorded learners' electrophysiological brain responses to Swedish word accents and compared them to those of native speakers. In the native speaker group, a pronounced suffix-related PrAN (pre-activation negativity), N400 and a P600-like late positivity indicate predictive processing. The learners, however, only produced a late (400–600 ms) centrally distributed negativity for word accent processing, remarkably similar to the deflection for pure pitch height differences found in the same subject group. Crucially, correlation analysis indicated that this negativity increased (at right-lateral electrode sites) for learners with increased level of Swedish proficiency. We conclude that, to allow L2 tone-suffix association and to enable its predictive capacity, the acquisition of Swedish word accents and their predictive properties might first involve dissociation of word tones from the default L1 tonal patterns as well as sensitisation to pitch height differences.
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| 5. |
- Gosselke Berthelsen, Sabine, et al.
(författare)
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Phonological transfer effects in novice learners : A learner's brain detects grammar errors only if the language sounds familiar
- 2021
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Ingår i: Bilingualism. - 1366-7289. ; 24:4, s. 656-669
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many aspects of a new language, including grammar rules, can be acquired and accessed within minutes. In the present study, we investigate how initial learners respond when the rules of a novel language are not adhered to. Through spoken word-picture association-learning, tonal and non-tonal speakers were taught artificial words. Along with lexicosemantic content expressed by consonants, the words contained grammatical properties embedded in vowels and tones. Pictures that were mismatched with any of the words' phonological cues elicited an N400 in tonal learners. Non-tonal learners only produced an N400 when the mismatch was based on a word's vowel or consonants, not the tone. The emergence of the N400 might indicate that error processing in L2 learners (unlike canonical processing) does not initially differentiate between grammar and semantics. Importantly, only errors based on familiar phonological cues evoked a mismatch-related response, highlighting the importance of phonological transfer in initial second language acquisition.
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| 6. |
- Hanna, Jeff, et al.
(författare)
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Early activation of Broca's area in grammar processing as revealed by the syntactic mismatch negativity and distributed source analysis
- 2014
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Ingår i: Cognitive Neuroscience. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1758-8928 .- 1758-8936. ; 5:2, s. 66-76
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Though activation of Broca's region in the combinatorial processing of symbols (language, music) has been revealed by neurometabolic studies, most previous neurophysiological research found the earliest grammar indices in the temporal cortex, with inferior-frontal generators becoming active at relatively late stages. We use the attention- and task-free syntactic mismatch negativity (sMMN) event-related potential (ERP) to measure rapid and automatic sensitivity of the human brain to grammatical information in participants' native language (French). Further, sources underlying the MMN were estimated by applying the Parametrical Empirical Bayesian (PEB) approach, with the Multiple Sparse Priors (MSP) technique. Results showed reliable grammar-related activation focused on Broca's region already in the 150-190 ms time window, providing robust documentation of its involvement in the first stages of syntactic processing.
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| 7. |
- Kochančikaitė, Renata, et al.
(författare)
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Early automatic processing of lexical word accents : Valid words are stored holistically irrespective of stem tones
- 2023
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Ingår i: ; , s. 37-38
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- According to the dual route model of word processing (Pinker & Prince, 1991),morphologically irregular and frequent words are stored in the lexical memory as full-form neural representations. In contrast, regular and infrequent words are decomposed into morphemes. So far, it has been unclear whether a tonal element―a lexical word accent―is treated by the brain as a decomposable component or an integral part of the word’s full form.We recorded ERP responses in 17 native speakers of Swedish (6 males, mean age: 23.2 years, SD = 4.5) to Swedish words with valid and invalid combinations of stem tone and suffix. These stimuli consisted of four words―two valid andtwo invalid combinations of stem tone and suffix (stem "krok", tone 1 and 2, suffixes "-en" and "-ar") presented as standards and deviants in four blocks, where validity and suffix varied orthogonally in a fully counterbalanced fashion.The results indicate a full-form lexical retrieval of valid Swedish words with both word accents. This process appears to have two stages that engage different brain areas: first the right auditory cortex, where, likely, the pitch contour of the word accent is established, and then the left lexical memory area, where the memory trace of the appropriate (that is, bearing the correct word accent) lexical unit could be activated. Moreover, these results for the first time show that word accents are used in early automatic lexical retrieval.
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| 8. |
- Leminen, Alina, et al.
(författare)
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Neural dynamics of inflectional and derivational morphology processing in the human brain
- 2013
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Ingår i: Cortex. - : Elsevier BV. - 1973-8102 .- 0010-9452. ; 49:10, s. 2758-2771
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We investigated neural distinctions between inflectional and derivational morphology and their interaction with lexical frequency using the mismatch negativity (MMN), an established neurophysiological index of experience-dependent linguistic memory traces and automatic syntactic processing. We presented our electroencephalography (EEG) study participants with derived and inflected words of variable lexical frequencies against their monomorphemic base forms in a passive oddball paradigm, along with acoustically matched pseudowords. Sensor space and distributed source modelling results showed that at 100-150 msec after the suffix onset, derived words elicited larger responses than inflected words. Furthermore, real derived words showed advantage over pseudo-derivations and frequent derivations elicited larger activation than less frequent ones. This pattern of results is fully in line with previous research that explained lexical MMN enhancement by an activation of strongly connected word-specific long-term memory circuits, and thus suggests stronger lexicalisation for frequently used complex words. At the same time, a strikingly different pattern was found for inflectional forms: higher response amplitude for pseudo-inflections than for real inflected words, with no clear frequency effects. This is fully in line with previous MMN results on combinatorial processing of (morpho)syntactic stimuli: higher response to ungrammatical morpheme strings than grammatical ones, which does not depend on the string's surface frequency. This pattern suggests that, for inflectional forms, combinatorial processing route dominates over whole-form storage and access. In sum, our results suggest that derivations are more likely to form unitary representations than inflections which are likely to be processed combinatorially, and imply at least partially distinct brain mechanisms for the processing and representation of these two types of morphology. These dynamic mechanisms, underpinned by perisylvian networks, are activated rapidly, at 100-150 msec after the information arrives at the input, and in a largely automatic fashion, possibly providing neural basis for the first-pass morphological processing of spoken words. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 9. |
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Microstructures of Learning : Novel methods and approaches for assessing structural and functional changes underlying knowledge acquisition in the brain
- 2015
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Proceedings (redaktörskap) (refereegranskat)abstract
- The interdisciplinary symposium ”Microstructures of Learning: Novel methods and approaches for assessing structural and functional changes underlying knowledge acquisition in the brain” took place on May 23, 2014 in Lund, Sweden. The cross-disciplinary meeting brought together researchers from linguistics, psychology, physics, chemistry, and neuroscience in order to discuss how knowledge, in particular, knowledge associated with learning a new language, is acquired and represented in the brain on a microstructural level. Novel non-invasive brain imaging methods for investigating language acquisition processes constituted a further theme of the symposium. For more information, please see: http://fron.tiers.in/go/y2efBK
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| 10. |
- Moseley, Rachel L., et al.
(författare)
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Brain Routes for Reading in Adults with and without Autism: EMEG Evidence
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0162-3257 .- 1573-3432. ; 44:1, s. 137-153
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reading utilises at least two neural pathways. The temporal lexical route visually maps whole words to their lexical entries, whilst the nonlexical route decodes words phonologically via parietal cortex. Readers typically employ the lexical route for familiar words, but poor comprehension plus precocity at mechanically 'sounding out' words suggests that differences might exist in autism. Combined MEG/EEG recordings of adults with autistic spectrum conditions (ASC) and controls while reading revealed preferential recruitment of temporal areas in controls and additional parietal recruitment in ASC. Furthermore, a lack of differences between semantic word categories was consistent with previous suggestion that people with ASC may lack a 'default' lexical-semantic processing mode. These results are discussed with reference to dual-route models of reading.
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