Meaning and object in Freud's theory of language

This article sets out to challenge the interpretation of Freud's views on the origins of the meaning of language according to which meaning always originates from an act of naming. In Freud's terms, word‐presentations would originally denote object‐ or thing‐presentations and gain meaning through this reference. This interpretation claims that this view was already expressed in Freud's On Aphasia (1891) and influenced all his later theory of language. To oppose this claim, three conceptions proposed by Freud are discussed that strongly suggest the participation of language in the construction of the field of objects: a metapsychological hypothesis (the concepts of word‐, thing‐, and object‐presentation), the explanation of a psychopathological phenomenon (the genesis of a fetishistic object‐choice), and a concept concerning the foundations of the psychoanalytic method of dream interpretation (secondary elaboration). As a conclusion, it is argued that Freud's early views in On Aphasia (1891) can be alternatively understood such as to allow for a different view of language and its relationship with objects.     

Children creating language: how Nicaraguan sign language acquired a spatial grammar

It has long been postulated that language is not purely learned, but arises from an interaction between environmental exposure and innate abilities. The innate component becomes more evident in rare situations in which the environment is markedly impoverished. The present study investigated the language production of a generation of deaf Nicaraguans who had not been exposed to a developed language. We examined the changing use of early linguistic structures (specifically, spatial modulations) in a sign language that has emerged since the Nicaraguan group first came together. In under two decades, sequential cohorts of learners systematized the grammar of this new sign language. We examined whether the systematicity being added to the language stems from children or adults; our results indicate that such changes originate in children aged 10 and younger. Thus, sequential cohorts of interacting young children collectively possess the capacity not only to learn, but also to create, language.     

From dyad to dialogue: language and the early relationship in American psychoanalytic theory

The centrality of language for a Freudian theory of mind and treatment has not been retained by most post-Freudian theorists. American writers have turned to academic developmental research on mother-child interactions to depict the preoedipal period as preverbal, presymbolic, nonconscious. This view presents the early relationship as developing in linear stages in which visual observational data (e.g., contingent behavior action patterns between two persons) are privileged over aural-oral data of communicational exchanges. An alternative view is presented that redefines the earliest relationship in terms of communicational exchanges, mediation, and dialogue. The claim is that understanding the nature of mediated communication keeps language central to psychoanalysis and reestablishes an intrapsychic dimension in the concept of relationship that is lost when relationship is reduced to behavioral patterns.     

Conceptual clusters in figurative language production

Although most prior research on figurative language examines comprehension, several recent studies on the production of such language have proved to be informative. One of the most noticeable traits of figurative language production is that it is produced at a somewhat random rate with occasional bursts of highly figurative speech (e.g., Corts & Pollio, 1999). The present article seeks to extend these findings by observing production during speech that involves a very high base rate of figurative language, making statistically defined bursts difficult to detect. In an analysis of three Baptist sermons, burst-like clusters of figurative language were identified. Further study indicated that these clusters largely involve a central root metaphor that represents the topic under consideration. An interaction of the coherence, along with a conceptual understanding of a topic and the relative importance of the topic to the purpose of the speech, is offered as the most likely explanation for the clustering of figurative language in natural speech.     

The role of inhibition in a spreading-activation model of language production. I. The psycholinguistic perspective

Spreading-activation models of language production are only workable to the extent that they manage to solve the heat death problem, i.e., the danger that too many nodes in the network are overactive at the same time. Therefore, a delicate balance between activational and deactivational forces has to be struck. Of the three prevailing dampening mechanisms of decay, self-inhibition and other-inhibition, the latter has been selected for closer scrutiny. The key proposal of this two-part article is that activation-based models of language production cannot afford to do without an inhibitory component, in particular lateral inhibition among nodes of the same level. Psycholinguistic evidence is reviewed in an attempt to insulate inhibitory from excitatory mechanisms. Although it is difficult in normal adult language use to distinguish between the effects of excessive activation and insufficient inhibition, some patterns from language acquisition and aphasia can be shown to follow from inhibitory rather than excitatory problems, thus demonstrating the reality of inhibition. In a system of activational and deactivational forces, other-inhibition is claimed to have the excitatory mechanism of syntax as its natural opponent. It is finally argued that other-inhibition offers an explanation for some puzzling findings from the experimental literature.     

Ostrich presentism

Ostrich presentists maintain that we can use all the expressive resources of the tensed language to provide an explanation of why true claims about the past are true, without thereby paying any price in terms of ontology or basic ideology. I clarify the position by making a distinction between three kinds of explanation, which has general interest and applicability. I then criticize the ostrich position because it requires an unconstrained version of the third form of explanation, which is out of place in metaphysics.     

From conceptual roles to structural relations: bridging the syntactic cleft.

The distinction between underlying and superficial linguistic structure is a staple of modern cognitive psychology. Despite increasingly diverse conceptions of syntactic relations in linguistic theory, the received view in psycholinguistics has remained one in which the entities assigned to underlying relations may assume different surface relations. The present article examines this view in the context of language production and reviews evidence that the disposition to bind animate entities to the surface subject relation is a basic feature of language use, suggesting that mappings from conceptual categories to syntactic relations form a main support of the bridge from conception to language. Proceeding on this assumption, the article also evaluates competing accounts of the mapping process in production. The results argue against syntactic relation-changing operations, but favor a division between meaning- and form-related mechanisms.     

Functional MRI of Language in Aphasia: A Review of the Literature and the Methodological Challenges

Animal analogue studies show that damaged adult brains reorganize to accommodate compromised functions. In the human arena, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and other functional neuroimaging techniques have been used to study reorganization of language substrates in aphasia. The resulting controversy regarding whether the right or the left hemisphere supports language recovery and treatment progress must be reframed. A more appropriate question is when left-hemisphere mechanisms and when right-hemisphere mechanisms support recovery of language functions. Small lesions generally lead to good recoveries supported by left-hemisphere mechanisms. However, when too much language eloquent cortex is damaged, right-hemisphere structures may provide the better substrate for recovery of language. Some studies suggest that recovery is particularly supported by homologues of damaged left-hemisphere structures. Evidence also suggests that under some circumstances, activity in both the left and right hemispheres can interfere with recovery of function. Further research will be needed to address these issues. However, daunting methodological problems must be managed to maximize the yield of future fMRI research in aphasia, especially in the area of language production. In this review, we cover six challenges for imaging language functions in aphasia with fMRI, with an emphasis on language production: (1) selection of a baseline task, (2) structure of language production trials, (3) mitigation of motion-related artifacts, (4) the use of stimulus onset versus response onset in fMRI analyses, (5) use of trials with correct responses and errors in analyses, and (6) reliability and stability of fMRI images across sessions. However, this list of methodological challenges is not exhaustive. Once methodology is advanced, knowledge from conceptually driven fMRI studies can be used to develop theoretically driven, mechanism-based treatments that will result in more effective therapy and to identify the best patient candidates for specific treatments. While the promise of fMRI in the study of aphasia is great, there is much work to be done before this technique will be a useful clinical tool.     

Linking production and comprehension processes: The case of relative clauses

Six studies investigated the relationship between production and comprehension by examining how relative clause production mechanisms influence the probabilistic information used by comprehenders to understand these structures. Two production experiments show that accessibility-based mechanisms that are influenced by noun animacy and verb type shape relative clause production. Two corpus studies confirm these production mechanisms in naturally occurring productions. Two comprehension studies found that nouns and verb types occurring in structures that speakers do not produce are difficult to comprehend. Specifically, the probability of producing a passive structure for a verb type in a given animacy configuration, as measured in the production and corpus studies, predicts comprehension difficulty in active structures. Results suggest that the way in which the verb roles are typically mapped onto syntactic arguments in production plays a role in comprehension. Implications for the relationship between production, comprehension and language learning are discussed.     

Acquisition of cognitive compiling

Language involves both structure and process. Giving each its due, we present a cognitive process model and show how its empirical success is related to claims about syntactic structure. Innate constraints on syntax are a central issue in linguistic theory, so it is a matter of concern that a widely accepted view of phrase structure constraints (X-bar theory) appears to be violated in some recent comprehension experiments with children. However, what is directly observed in the experiments is not a syntactic structure but the execution of a plan. We present a language of process for representing such plans and thereby provide a unified explanation of several developmental phenomena, including the results of the above experiments and of new experiments suggested by our approach. The explanation is in terms of the cognitive resources required to formulate and execute a plan. Since the explanation is based on nonsyntactic processing, the children's syntax need no longer be held faulty. This conclusion invigorates the claim that the range of phrase structures available to children is biologically constrained.     

Synaesthesia: learned or lost?

The question why synaesthesia, an atypical binding within or between modalities, occurs is both enduring and important. Two explanations have been provided: (1) a congenital explanation: we are all born as synaesthetes but most of us subsequently lose the experience due to brain development; (2) a learning explanation: synaesthesia is related to some learning process during childhood. Three recent studies provide conflicting support for these explanations. Two studies supported the idea that synaesthesia is learned by showing that the frequency of everyday language implicitly modulates the synaesthetic experience. Another study argued that synaesthesia reflects basic, innate magnitude representations. In this paper we reassess these points of view, and show that it is possible for both to be valid. These findings are integrated into an interactive specialization account of development in order to explain the neuronal mechanism underlying synaesthesia.     

Artificial intelligence,language, and the study of knowledge

This paper studies the relationship of Artificial Intelligence to the study of language and the representation of the underlying knowledge which supports the comprehension process. It develops the view that intelligence is based on the ability to use large amounts of diverse kinds of knowledge in procedural ways, rather than on the possession of a few general and uniform principles. The paper also provides a unifying thread to a variety of recent approaches to natural language comprehension. We conclude with a brief discussion of how Artificial Intelligence may have a radical impact on education if the principles which it utilizes to explore the representation and use of knowledge are made available to the student to use in his own learning experiences.     

On sentential anagrams: Making sentences out of words

Perception and production of language often have a problem-solving component to them, and this has not been much studied. The present article describes an exploratory approach to some aspects of production which required college students to reorder sentential anagrams. The main finding was that the number of words to be ordered was the greatest influence on performance, whereas little if any influence was exerted by the grammatical variables studied. Although the problem-solving process does not model all language use, it may model the more creative aspect, in which people try to make nonstandard statements. In contrast to a common current view that sentences are holistic, well-formed linguistic objects in mind, the present work emphasizes the developmental and interactive aspect of language production.This work was supported by Grant A7655 from the National, Research Council of Canada and by Leave Fellowship W 760 174 from Canada Council.     

Persistent structural priming from language comprehension to language production

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

Encouraging prediction during production facilitates subsequent comprehension: Evidence from interleaved object naming in sentence context and sentence reading

Many studies have shown that a supportive context facilitates language comprehension. A currently influential view is that language production may support prediction in language comprehension. Experimental evidence for this, however, is relatively sparse. Here we explored whether encouraging prediction in a language production task encourages the use of predictive contexts in an interleaved comprehension task. In Experiment 1a, participants listened to the first part of a sentence and provided the final word by naming aloud a picture. The picture name was predictable or not predictable from the sentence context. Pictures were named faster when they could be predicted than when this was not the case. In Experiment 1b the same sentences, augmented by a final spill-over region, were presented in a self-paced reading task. No difference in reading times for predictive versus non-predictive sentences was found. In Experiment 2, reading and naming trials were intermixed. In the naming task, the advantage for predictable picture names was replicated. More importantly, now reading times for the spill-over region were considerable faster for predictive than for non-predictive sentences. We conjecture that these findings fit best with the notion that prediction in the service of language production encourages the use of predictive contexts in comprehension. Further research is required to identify the exact mechanisms by which production exerts its influence on comprehension.