Sensitivity to discontinuous dependencies in language learners: evidence for limitations in processing space

Five experiments using the Headturn Preference Procedure examined 15- and 18-month-old children's sensitivity to morphosyntactic dependencies in English. In each experiment, the children were exposed to two types of passages. Passages in the experimental condition contained a well-formed English dependency between the auxiliary verb is and a main verb with the ending -ing. Passages in the control condition contained an ungrammatical combination of the modal auxiliary can and a main verb with the ending -ing. In the experiments, the distance between the dependent morphemes was systematically varied by inserting an adverbial of a specified length between the auxiliary and main verbs. The results indicated that 18-month-olds are sensitive to the basic relationship between is and -ing, but that 15-month-olds are not. The 18-month-olds, but not the 15-month-olds, listened significantly longer to the passages with the well-formed English dependency. In addition, the 18-month-olds showed this preference for the well-formed dependency only over a limited domain of 1-3 syllables. Over domains of 4-5 syllables, they showed no significant preference for the experimental over the control passages. These findings indicate that 18-month-olds can track relationships between functor morphemes. Additionally, these findings are consistent with the hypothesis that 18-month-olds are working with a limited processing window, and that they are only picking up relevant dependencies that fall within this window.     

Perception of vowel length by Japanese- and English-learning infants.

This study investigated vowel length discrimination in infants from 2 language backgrounds, Japanese and English, in which vowel length is either phonemic or nonphonemic. Experiment 1 revealed that English 18-month-olds discriminate short and long vowels although vowel length is not phonemically contrastive in English. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that Japanese 18-month-olds also discriminate the pairs but in an asymmetric manner: They detected only the change from long to short vowel, but not the change in the opposite direction, although English infants in Experiment 1 detected the change in both directions. Experiment 4 tested Japanese 10-month-olds and revealed a symmetric pattern of discrimination similar to that of English 18-month-olds. Experiment 5 revealed that native adult Japanese speakers, unlike Japanese 18-month-old infants who are presumably still developing phonological perception, ultimately acquire a symmetrical discrimination pattern for the vowel contrasts. Taken together, our findings suggest that English 18-month-olds and Japanese 10-month-olds perceive vowel length using simple acoustic?phonetic cues, whereas Japanese 18-month-olds perceive it under the influence of the emerging native phonology, which leads to a transient asymmetric pattern in perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sensitivity of rat cortical neurons in distinguishing taste qualities by individual and correlative activities

The aim of the study was to examine precursors of the evoked K-complex as manifested in event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during stage 2 sleep. ERPs to infrequent deviant tones of 1100 and 2000 Hz and immediately preceding frequent standard tones of 1000 Hz were compared between trials containing and trials not containing a K-complex (KC trials, NO KC trials, respectively) to the deviant tones. The N350 wave to the deviant tones was markedly larger during the KC than during the NO KC trials. Also the P210 wave to the 2000 Hz deviant tone showed the same phenomenon. No definite evidence was found for the mismatch negativity-like deflection during the KC trials. ERPs to the standard tones presented immediately (625 ms) prior to the deviant tones showed a larger early positive wave during the KC trials than during the NO KC trials. No corresponding phenomenon could be observed for the identical standard tone presented 1250 ms prior to the deviant tones. In all, the results suggest that the sleeping brain is momentarily more responsive to incoming sensory events preceding a K-complex than preceding a no K-complex response to a stimulus.     

Bilingual Hispanic children's performance on the English and Spanish versions of the Cognitive Assessment System.

This study compared the performance of referred bilingual Hispanic children on the Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, Successive (PASS) theory as measured by English and Spanish versions of the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS; Naglieri & Das, 1997a). The results suggest that students scored similarly on both English and Spanish versions of the CAS. Within each version of the CAS, the bilingual children earned their lowest scores in Successive processing regardless of the language used during test administration. Small mean differences were noted between the means of the English and Spanish versions for the Simultaneous and Successive processing scales; however, mean Full Scale scores were similar. Specific subtests within the Simultaneous and Successive scales were found to contribute to the differences between the English and Spanish versions of the CAS. Comparisons of the children's profiles of cognitive weakness on both versions of the CAS showed that these children performed consistently despite the language difference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Morphology and meaning in the English mental lexicon.

Investigated the lexical entry for morphologically complex words in English. Six experiments, using a cross-modal repetition priming task, asked whether the lexical entry for derivationally suffixed and prefixed words is morphologically structured and how this relates to the semantic and phonological transparency of the surface relationship between stem and affix. There was clear evidence for morphological decomposition of semantically transparent forms. This was independent of phonological transparency, suggesting that morphemic representations are phonologically abstract. Semantically opaque forms, in contrast, behave like monomorphemic words. Overall, suffixed and prefixed derived words and their stems prime each other through shared morphemes in the lexical entry, except for pairs of suffixed forms, which show a cohort-based interference effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing of auditory stimuli during auditory and visual attention as revealed by event-related potentials

Auditory event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during auditory and visual selective attention tasks. Auditory stimuli consisted of frequent standard tones (1000 Hz) and infrequent deviant tones (1050 Hz and 1300 Hz) delivered randomly to the left and right ears. Visual stimuli were vertical line gratings randomly presented on a video monitor at mean intervals of 6 s. During auditory attention, the subject attended to the stimuli in a designated ear and responded to the 1300-Hz deviants occurring among the attended tones. During visual attention, the subject responded to the occasional visual stimuli. ERPs for tones delivered to the attended ear were negatively displaced relative to ERPs elicited by tones delivered to the unattended ear and to ERPs elicited by auditory stimuli during visual attention. This attention effect consisted of negative difference waves with early and late components. Mismatch negativities (MMNs) were elicited by 1300-Hz and 1050-Hz deviants irrespective of whether they occurred among attended or unattended tones. MMN amplitudes were unaffected by attention, supporting the proposal that the MMN is generated by an automatic cerebral discrimination process.     

A developmental study of the effect of temporal order on the ERPs elicited by novel environmental sounds

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 16 subjects in each of the following age groups, 5-7, 9-11, 14-16, and 20-28 years of age. Subjects performed a novelty oddball task, in which frequent, standard tones (80% probability) were intermixed with infrequent tones to which the subject responded (10%), along with 48 unique novel, environmental sounds (10%). Analyses focused on the effects of temporal order (either serial order within the block or block number) in interaction with age group on the ERPs to the novel sounds. The amplitude and scalp distribution of two ERP components were analyzed, the 'novelty P3,' assumed to reflect aspects of the orienting response, and the P32, a component that may be synonymous with the P3b. Evidence suggests that the frontal aspect of the scalp distribution of the novelty P3 depends upon the integrity of the prefrontal cortex. Temporal order produced systematic (primarily linear) reductions in novelty P3 amplitude that were greater at frontal than posterior electrode sites. The P3(2) did not show consistent effects of temporal order. Both of these phenomena were highly similar for all four age groups. It is concluded that the brain's response to novelty is similar across a wide age range, involving a neural circuit with both frontal and posterior elements.     

Spanish-Language Measures of Mania and Depression.

Efforts to better understand bipolar spectrum disorders across ethnic groups are often hampered by the lack of commonly used self-report instruments to assess mania and depression in individuals who speak languages other than English. This article describes the translation into Spanish of 2 self-report measures of manic symptoms (i.e., the Internal State Scale and the Hypomanic Personality Scale) and 2 self-report measures of depression (i.e., the Inventory to Diagnose Depression and the Inventory to Diagnose Depression, Lifetime version). The authors translated these measures into Spanish and assessed their psychometric properties among bilingual college students (N = 88). Results suggest that the Spanish versions have psychometric properties comparable to the English versions of the instruments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stages of auditory feature conjunction: An event-related brain potential study.

Auditory event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded to tones of different frequencies and locations in a dichotic selective attention task in which Ss responded to occasional deviant tones of a prespecified location and frequency. Attention effects were isolated as negative difference (Nd) waves by subtracting ERPs to tones with no attended features from ERPs to the same tones when they shared target frequency, location, or both cues. The N1/P90 (latency 80–200 msec), originating in a tonotopically organized generator, was enhanced for all tones in the attended ear. Nd waves, beginning at 80 msec and lasting up to 700 ms, were seen to tones with either attended feature. Nd waves to frequency and location features had different scalp distributions consistent with generation in different cortical fields. Conjunction-specific Nds began 30–50 msec after Nds to individual features. The relative timing suggests that feature conjunction began before the analysis of individual features was complete. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Korean-English biliteracy acquisition: Cross-language phonological and orthographic transfer.

Cross-language phonological and orthographic relationship in the biliteracy acquisition of children learning to read Korean and English was investigated in this study. Forty-five Korean-English bilingual children were tested in first-language (L1; Korean) and 2nd-language (L2; English) reading skills focusing on 2 reading processes--phonological and orthographic processing. The authors found that phonological skills in L1 and L2 were strongly correlated, and Korean phonological skills explained a unique amount of variance in English pseudoword reading beyond English phonological and orthographic skills. However, there was limited orthographic skill transfer between the 2 systems. Results are discussed within the framework of universal phonological processes in learning to read. The authors conclude that bilingual reading acquisition may be a joint function of general phonological processes and orthographic-specific skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward tense as a clinical marker of specific language impairment in English-speaking children

A critical clinical issue is the identification of a clinical marker, a linguistic form or principle that can be shown to be characteristic of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). In this paper we evaluate, as candidate clinical markers, a set of morphemes that mark Tense. In English, this includes -s third person singular, -ed regular past, BE, and DO. According to the Extended Optional Infinitive Account (EOI) of Rice, Wexler, and Cleave (1995), this set of morphemes is likely to appear optionally in the grammars of children with SLI at a rate lower than the optionality evident in younger controls. Three groups of preschool children participated: 37 children with SLI, and two control groups, one of 40 MLU-equivalent children and another of 45 age-equivalent children. Three kinds of evidence support the conclusion that a set of morphemes that marks Tense can be considered a clinical marker: (a) low levels of accuracy for the target morphemes for the SLI group relative to either of the two control groups; (b) affectedness for the set of morphemes defined by the linguistic function of Tense, but not for morphemes unrelated to Tense; and (c) a bimodal distribution for Tense-marking morphemes relative to age peers, in which the typical children are at essentially adult levels of the grammar, whereas children in the SLI group were at low (i.e., non-adultlike) levels of performance. The clinical symptoms are evident in omissions of surface forms. Errors of subject-verb agreement and syntactic misuses are rare, showing that, as predicted, children in an EOI stage who are likely to mark Tense optionally at the same time know a great deal about the grammatical properties of finiteness and agreement in the adult grammar. The findings are discussed in terms of alternative accounts of the grammatical limitations of children with SLI and implications for clinical identification.     

Vertebrate gastrulation and axial patterning: editorial overview, Part 2

Three rats were trained with an oddball paradigm, in which 5 kHz frequent and 10 kHz target rare tones were presented with a probability of 0.8 and 0.2. Pressing the lever within 2 s following the onset of the target tones was rewarded with a drop of food paste. Long latency event-related potentials (ERPs) corresponding to those in humans could be recorded in rats. After the administration of metamfetamine (0.2 mg/kg), the amplitude of surface and intracortical N1 increased, indicating an augmentation of the primary cortical response. Surface P3 showed a decrease of amplitude, accompanied by an increase of intracortical negativity. These alterations of ERPs may be caused by the dysregulation of central noradrenergic system.     

Classification of single-trial ERP sub-types: application of globally optimal vector quantization using simulated annealing

Examination of the single trials which are traditionally averaged to form late-component ERPs reveals a number of different sub-types of response. This study introduces an automated and robust approach to objectively classify these ERP sub-types. Auditory oddball ERP (target tones) data were examined in 25 normal subjects. Globally optimal vector quantization using simulated annealing (the "Metropolis algorithm") was employed to determine the natural groupings of the single-trial responses that constitute the average ERP. No prior assumptions about the ERP patterns were imposed. This is the first study to employ a cluster analysis technique with globally optimal properties in ERP research. We demonstrate that, due to the presence of many different undesirable local minima, a globally optimal solution is crucial if the classification of the single-trial ERPs is to reflect their real structure. The results of this study showed that only around 40% of single trials had a morphology which resembled the averaged ERP wave form. The remaining single trials had a response morphology which was different from the average, in terms of the amplitude and latency of the components. Single-trial ERP response sub-types may provide fundamental complementary functional information to the ERP average.     

Development of an abstract category representation for the spatial relation between in 6- to 10-month-old infants.

Nine experiments examined the formation of an abstract category representation for the spatial relation between by 6- to 10-month-old infants. The experiments determined that 9- to 10-month-olds, but not 6 to 7-month-olds, could form an abstract category representation for between when performing in an object-variation version of the between categorization task. The results also demonstrated that 6- to 7-month-olds could form category representations for between in the object-variation version of the between categorization task but that such representations were specific to the particular objects presented. The evidence confirms that representations for different spatial relations emerge at different points during development, and suggests that each representation undergoes its own period of development from concrete to abstract. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential item functioning in a Spanish translation of the PTSD Checklist: Detection and evaluation of impact.

This study demonstrated the application of an innovative item response theory (IRT) based approach to evaluating measurement equivalence, comparing a newly developed Spanish version of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C) with the established English version. Basic principles and practical issues faced in the application of IRT methods for instrument evaluation are discussed. Data were derived from a study of the mental health consequences of community violence in both Spanish speakers (n = 102) and English speakers (n = 284). Results of differential item functioning (DIF) analyses revealed that the 2 versions were not fully equivalent on an item-by-item basis in that 6 of the 17 items displayed uniform DIF. No bias was observed, however, at the level of the composite PCL-C scale score, indicating that the 2 language versions can be combined for scale-level analyses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exploring Two-Wave Reciprocal Structural Relations Among Orthographic Knowledge, Phonological Sensitivity, and Reading and Spelling of English Words by Chinese Students.

In a 2-wave study of a cohort of 108 Chinese students (10- to 11-year-olds) learning English as a second language, the authors examined the relative effects of three Time 1 latent constructs-- orthographic knowledge, phonological sensitivity, and word identification (reading and spelling of regular and exception words)--on the respective Time 2 performance. The authors posited autoregressive effects, in which Time 1 constructs affected their matching Time 2 performance (e.g., Time 1 orthographic knowledge on Time 2 orthographic knowledge), as well as reciprocal cross-domain effects (e.g., orthographic knowledge on word identification and vice versa). The model converged to a proper solution with reasonably good fit. The results suggest (a) strong stability in the children's word identification and phonological sensitivity, (b) substantial effects of word identification on subsequent orthographic knowledge and phonological sensitivity, particularly the former; and (c) greater variations in individuals' growth of orthographic knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consciousness of attention and expectancy as reflected in event-related potentials and reaction times.

The effects of conscious expectancies and attention on event-related potentials (ERPs) and choice reaction times (RTs) and their modulation by stimulus sequence were studied. Ss retrospectively reported their expectancy of, and attention to, the terminal tones of short series. ERPs and RTs showed the usual sequential effects that were modulated by practice. As ratings were affected by only a few of the stimulus sequence, conscious access to sequence-based expectancy or attention appears to be fragmentary. Increased P300 amplitude with attention indicates conscious access to processing capacity. RTs and P300 latencies suggest stimulus processing time to decrease with sequence-based and consciously accessible expectancy. Differential effects of stimulus sequences and conscious expectancies on P300 amplitude indicate influences of two varieties of expectancy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory ERPs during rhyme and semantic processing: effects of reading ability in college students

Event-related potential (ERP), reaction time (RT), and response accuracy measures were obtained during the phonological and semantic categorization of spoken words in 14 undergraduates: 7 were average readers and 7 were reading-impaired. For the impaired readers, motor responses were significantly slower and less accurate than were those of the average readers in both classification tasks. ERPs obtained during rhyme processing displayed a relatively larger amplitude negativity at about 480 ms for the impaired readers as compared to the average readers, whereas semantic processing resulted in no major group differences in the ERPs at this latency. Also, N480 amplitude was larger during semantic relative to phonological classification for the average readers but not for the impaired readers. Results are compared to a previous study of reading-impaired children on the same tasks.     

Phonological Processing Skills and Early Reading Abilities in Hong Kong Chinese Kindergarteners Learning to Read English as a Second Language.

The present 9-month longitudinal study investigated relations between Chinese native language phonological processing skills and early Chinese and English reading abilities among 227 kindergarteners in Hong Kong. Phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, and short-term verbal memory differed in their relations to concurrent and subsequent Chinese and English word recognition. The significant bidirectional relations between phonological awareness and Chinese reading ability remained even after accounting for the variance due to age, vocabulary, and visual skills performance. When all predictors were considered simultaneously, only phonological awareness remained a significant predictor of Chinese and English reading abilities both concurrently and longitudinally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

It's a sign of the kind: Gestures and words guide infants' inductive inferences.

The role of words and gestures in guiding infants' inductive inferences about nonobvious properties was examined. One hundred seventy-two 14-month-olds and 22-month-olds were presented with novel target objects followed by test objects that varied in similarity to the target. Objects were introduced with a novel word or a novel gesture or with no label. When target and test objects were highly similar in shape, both 14- and 22-month-olds inferred that these objects shared a nonobvious property, regardless of whether the objects were labeled with a word or a gesture or with no label. When objects were labeled with the same word, both 14- and 22-month-olds generalized the nonobvious properties to objects that shared minimal perceptual similarity. Finally, when objects were labeled with the same gesture, 14-month-olds, but not 22-month-olds, generalized the nonobvious properties to objects that shared minimal perceptual similarity. These results indicate that 14-month-olds possess a more generalized symbolic system as they will rely on both words and gestures to guide their inferences. By 22-months of age, infants treat words as a privileged referential form when making inductive inferences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)