Intra‐sentential context effects on the interpretation of logical metonymy⋆

Verbs such as enjoy in the student enjoyed the book exhibit logical metonymy: enjoy is interpreted as enjoy reading. Theoreticalwork [Computational Linguistics 17 (4) (1991) 409; The Generative Lexicon, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995] predicts that this interpretation can be influenced by intra‐sentential context, e.g., by the subject of enjoy. In this article, we test this prediction using a completion experiment and find that the interpretation of a metonymic verb is influenced by the semantic role of its subject. We present a Bayesian model that accounts for the interpretation of logical metonymy and achieves a good fit on our experimental data. We show that the parameters of the model can be estimated from completion data or from corpus data.     

Frequency and predictability effects in the Dundee Corpus: An eye movement analysis

Analyses carried out on a large corpus of eye movement data were used to comment on four contentious theoretical issues. The results provide no evidence that word frequency and word predictability have early interactive effects on inspection time. Contrary to some earlier studies, in these data there is little evidence that properties of a prior word generally spill over and influence current processing. In contrast, there is evidence that both the frequency and the predictability of a word in parafoveal vision influence foveal processing. In the case of predictability, the direction of the effect suggests that more predictable parafoveal words produce longer foveal fixations. Finally, there is evidence that information about word class modulates processing over a span greater than a single word. The results support the notion of distributed parallel processing.     

How strongly do word reading times and lexical decision times correlate? Combining data from eye movement corpora and megastudies

We assess the amount of shared variance between three measures of visual word recognition latencies: eye movement latencies, lexical decision times, and naming times. After partialling out the effects of word frequency and word length, two well-documented predictors of word recognition latencies, we see that 7–44% of the variance is uniquely shared between lexical decision times and naming times, depending on the frequency range of the words used. A similar analysis of eye movement latencies shows that the percentage of variance they uniquely share either with lexical decision times or with naming times is much lower. It is 5–17% for gaze durations and lexical decision times in studies with target words presented in neutral sentences, but drops to 0.2% for corpus studies in which eye movements to all words are analysed. Correlations between gaze durations and naming latencies are lower still. These findings suggest that processing times in isolated word processing and continuous text reading are affected by specific task demands and presentation format, and that lexical decision times and naming times are not very informative in predicting eye movement latencies in text reading once the effect of word frequency and word length are taken into account. The difference between controlled experiments and natural reading suggests that reading strategies and stimulus materials may determine the degree to which the immediacy-of-processing assumption and the eye–mind assumption apply. Fixation times are more likely to exclusively reflect the lexical processing of the currently fixated word in controlled studies with unpredictable target words rather than in natural reading of sentences or texts.     

Age and responding-hand related changes in performance of neurologically normal subjects on the line-bisection and chimeric-faces tasks

This study investigated age and responding-hand (left, right, and bimanual) related changes in visuospatial attention. Two tasks were completed by 107 neurologically normal right-handed subjects ranging in age from 5 to 70 years and distributed across four age groups. Task-specific differences between groups were apparent. In the line-bisection task, the younger and older groups displayed symmetrical neglect while the young and middle groups displayed pseudoneglect. In the chimeric-faces task the leftward bias was less pronounced in the older group and more susceptible to responding-hand effects in the middle and older groups. Whilst results, especially those of the bimanual method, provided strong support for an activation model, they imposed an age limitation on its appropriateness as an explanation for performance on the chimeric-faces task. Results are discussed as reflecting changes in the corpus callosum and right hemisphere.     

Bimanual coordination and interhemispheric interaction

Bimanual coordination of skilled finger movements requires intense functional coupling of the motor areas of both cerebral hemispheres. This coupling can be measured non-invasively in humans with task-related coherence analysis of multi-channel surface electroencephalography. Since bimanual coordination is a high-level capability that virtually always requires training, this review is focused on changes of interhemispheric coupling associated with different stages of bimanual learning. Evidence is provided that the interaction between hemispheres is of particular importance in the early phase of command integration during acquisition of a novel bimanual task. It is proposed that the dynamic changes in interhemispheric interaction reflect the establishment of efficient bimanual ‘motor routines'. The effects of callosal damage on bimanual coordination and learning are reviewed as well as functional imaging studies related to bimanual movement. There is evidence for an extended cortical network involved in bimanual motor activities which comprises the bilateral primary sensorimotor cortex (SM1), supplementary motor area, cingulate motor area, dorsal premotor cortex and posterior parietal cortex. Current concepts about the functions of these structures in bimanual motor behavior are reviewed.     

发展性协调障碍的神经机制

发展性协调障碍是一种特殊的发育障碍, 它的一个显著特征是动作协调困难, 这种障碍影响着5%~8%学龄儿童的学业成绩和日常生活。发展性协调障碍常常与其他类型的学习困难并存。发展性协调障碍的病因非常复杂, 这种障碍与一定程度的视觉空间认知能力受损有关, 早期精细运动技能发育与脑神经发育进程可能存在时间的重合。近年来, 研究者们试图探索影响发展性协调障碍的神经基础, 并先后提出不同的神经关联假说。这些理论假说主要涉及到小脑、顶叶、胼胝体、基底神经节和大脑白质等脑区。本文全面回顾了该领域研究的最新进展, 并提出未来研究应该关注的方向与问题。     

Relationships between language structure and language learning: the suffixing preference and grammatical categorization

It is a reasonable assumption that universal properties of natural languages are not accidental. They occur either because they are underwritten by genetic code, because they assist in language processing or language learning, or due to some combination of the two. In this paper we investigate one such language universal: the suffixing preference across the world's languages, whereby inflections tend to be added to the end of words. A corpus analysis of child-directed speech in English found that suffixes were more accurate at cuing the grammatical category of the root word than were prefixes. An artificial language experiment found that there was a learning advantage for suffixes over prefixes in terms of grammatical categorization within an artificial language. The results are consistent with an account of language universals that originate in general purpose learning mechanisms.     

Adaptive behavior inventory for children: The need for local norms

This study investigates the need for local and/or separate racial-ethnic group norms on the Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children (ABIC). A random sample of 420 children from the Corpus Christi (Texas) Independent School District, was stratified according to gender, age, racial-ethnic group (Black, Mexican-American, and Anglo), and low or middle socioeconomic status. The parent of each child was interviewed with the ABIC. Results indicated a need for local norms for only the low SES Mexican-Americans.     

Bootstrapping word order in prelexical infants: a Japanese-Italian cross-linguistic study

Learning word order is one of the earliest feats infants accomplish during language acquisition [Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.]. Two theories have been proposed to account for this fact. Constructivist/lexicalist theories [Tomasello, M. (2000). Do young children have adult syntactic competence? Cognition, 74(3), 209-253.] argue that word order is learned separately for each lexical item or construction. Generativist theories [Chomsky, N. (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.], on the other hand, claim that word order is an abstract and general property, determined from the input independently of individual words. Here, we show that eight-month-old Japanese and Italian infants have opposite order preferences in an artificial grammar experiment, mirroring the opposite word orders of their respective native languages. This suggests that infants possess some representation of word order prelexically, arguing for the generativist view. We propose a frequency-based bootstrapping mechanism to account for our results, arguing that infants might build this representation by tracking the order of functors and content words, identified through their different frequency distributions. We investigate frequency and word order patterns in infant-directed Japanese and Italian corpora to support this claim.