Functional heterogeneity of inferior frontal gyrus is shaped by linguistic experience

A crosslinguistic, positron emission tomography (PET) study was conducted to determine the influence of linguistic experience on the perception of segmental (consonants and vowels) and suprasegmental (tones) information. Chinese and English subjects (10 per group) were presented binaurally with lists consisting of five Chinese monosyllabic morphemes (speech) or low-pass-filtered versions of the same stimuli (nonspeech). The first and last items were targeted for comparison; the time interval between target tones was filled with irrelevant distractor tones. A speeded-response, selective attention paradigm required subjects to make discrimination judgments of the target items while ignoring intervening distractor tones. PET scans were acquired for five tasks presented twice: one passive listening to pitch (nonspeech) and four active (speech = consonant, vowel, and tone; nonspeech = pitch). Significant regional changes in blood flow were identified from comparisons of group-averaged images of active tasks relative to passive listening. Chinese subjects show increased activity in left premotor cortex, pars opercularis, and pars triangularis across the four tasks. English subjects, on the other hand, show increased activity in left inferior frontal gyrus regions only in the vowel task and in right inferior frontal gyrus regions in the pitch task. Findings suggest that functional circuits engaged in speech perception depend on linguistic experience. All linguistic information signaled by prosodic cues engages left-hemisphere mechanisms. Storage and executive processes of working memory that are implicated in phonological processing are mediated in discrete regions of the left frontal lobe.     

汉语词汇产生中语义、语音层次之间的交互作用

采用3种方法考察汉语词汇产生中语义激活（词条选择）和音位编码这两个阶段之间的关系。实验一、二分别采用图片命名法和干扰字命名法,发现目标图片（“牛”）的语义相关词（“羊”）的语音信息得到了激活,说明汉语词汇产生中存在多重语音激活,音位编码在词条选择完成之前既已开始。实验三采用语义范畴判断法,考察语音信息的激活是否会向上反馈到词条和语义层次,发现目标图片（“羊”）的同音字（“阳”）不会促进对图片的语义判断。研究表明,多重语音激活与语音激活向词条和语义层次反馈是两个独立的,可以分割的问题。虽然实验一和二的结果符合相互作用理论,实验三的结果符合模块化观点,但就总体而言,本研究更加支持词汇产生中的模块化观点     

元记忆监控对外语语音信息加工的影响

这项研究在元记忆监控环境下考查真实教学情景中学习者对外语语音信息加工的实际效果。结果表明：在外文单词听觉再认与外文单词听觉再现测验中,无论是及时测验还是延时测验,实验组的成绩都明显高于控制组,元记忆训练对外语语音信息的加工是有影响的。     

Self-talk: Review and sport-specific model

Self-talk is a key component of the sport psychology canon. Although self-talk has been widely endorsed by athletes and coaches as a performance enhancement strategy, a comprehensive model of self-talk in sport that might be used to guide systematic research has yet to be developed. This purpose of this paper is to: (a) review theory and research related to self-talk in sport; and (b) present a sport-specific model that builds upon existing theory and research, and addresses key questions related to self-talk. The paper begins with a definition of self-talk, developed with consideration of the discursive nature of inner speech and dual process theories. Extant self-talk models related to self-talk in sport are reviewed and serve as a foundation for a sport-specific model of self-talk. Components of the model (i.e., self-talk, System 1, System 2, behaviour, contextual factors, personal factors) are presented, the reciprocal relationships among model components are explored, and implications of the sport-specific model of self-talk are discussed.     

Guess who? Children use prosody to infer intended listeners

This study examined the relative influence of prosody and semantic content in children's inferences about intended listeners. Children (n = 72), who ranged in age from 5 to 10 years, heard greetings with prosody and content that was either infant or adult directed and chose the intended listener from amongst an infant or an adult. While content affected all children's choices, the effect of prosody was stronger (at least, for children aged 7–10 years). For conditions in which prosodic cues were suggestive of one listener, and content cues, another, children aged 7–10 years chose the listener according to prosody. In contrast, the youngest age group (5‐ to 6‐year‐olds) chose listeners at chance levels in these incongruent conditions. While prosodic cues were most influential in determining children's choices, their ratings of how certain they felt about their choices indicated that content nonetheless influenced their thinking about the intended listener. Results are the first to show the unique influence of prosody in children's thinking about appropriate speech styles. Findings add to work showing children's ability to use prosody to make inferences about speakers' communicative intentions.     

无关言语对阅读的干扰基于内容还是过程？——来自眼动研究的证据

采用眼动追踪技术,考察无关言语对句子材料相同的自然阅读和校对阅读的影响,探讨无关言语对阅读的干扰机制是基于内容还是过程。结果发现,有意义言语显著干扰了正常的阅读行为,而无意义言语与无背景音条件不存在显著差异。并且背景言语类型与任务类型的交互作用显著,表现为言语的语义成分只干扰了自然阅读,而对校对阅读没有影响。实验结果支持过程干扰假说。     

Reducing speech disfluencies during public speaking using brief habit reversal

Recent research has evaluated the effects of brief habit reversal, consisting of either awareness training (AT) and competing response training (Mancuso & Miltenberger, 2016), or AT alone (Spieler & Miltenberger, 2017) in reducing speech disfluencies during public speaking. Although both formats of brief habit reversal reduced rates of speech disfluencies, results suggested that teaching a competing response (CR) may produce better outcomes. We aimed to replicate and extend those studies by evaluating the effects of AT and instructing the use of a CR (a silent pause) on rates of speech disfluencies and CRs during public speaking. Following training, all 4 participants demonstrated a reduction of speech disfluencies, and 1 participant demonstrated moderate levels of CRs when giving a speech in front of both a single experimenter and small audience. For 1 participant, generalized effects were demonstrated when presenting in front of a class.     

Is talking to yourself thinking?

The question whether talking to yourself is thinking is considered from two viewpoints: radical behaviorism and teleological behaviorism. For radical behaviorism, following Skinner (1945), mental events such as ‘thinking’ may be explained in terms of private behavior occurring within the body, ordinarily unobservable by other people; thus, radical behaviorism may identify talking to yourself with thinking. However, to be consistent with its basic principles, radical behaviorism must hold that private behavior, hence thinking, is identical with covert muscular, speech movements (rather than proprioception of those movements). For teleological behaviorism, following Skinner (1938), all mental terms, including ‘thinking,’ stand for abstract, temporally extended patterns of overt behavior. Thus, for teleological behaviorism, talking to yourself, covert by definition, cannot be thinking.