Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Words are generally considered as the basic unit of language processing. Hence word segmentation is a vital step for language comprehension. In speech processing, cues for word segmentation may be phonological, grammatical or semantic. Phonological cues can be further classified as statistic, phonotactic and prosodic, while prosodic information involves stress, duration and pitch. Phonological cues are generally acquired at the initial stage of language learning, and they differ as the linguistic environment changes. Semantic and grammatical knowledge provide high-level cues which constrains word segmentation at later stage. It is suggested that future research focus on the trajectory of segmentation cues in a lifespan and the specificity of language in the process of word segmentation.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Language impairment is a salient and one of the earliest symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Over the past decades, researchers have employed various neuroimaging techniques (e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI) to explore the neural markers of language impairments in individuals with ASD. Individual investigations have converged on finding differences in neural responses of language processing (e.g., word, sentence, prosody) between autistic participants and typically developing (TD) controls. Results from meta-analytic studies further indicated that the differential neural activities were stable across studies. However, the meta-analysis that focused on semantic processing in the ASD group revealed somewhat different results from the meta-analysis on language processing. In addition, the results of sub-analyses that divided language processing tasks into subtypes reported that the ASD-TD differential activation patterns were moderated by task type. The previous meta-analysis of semantic processing in ASD populations included both sentence-level and word-level semantic processing studies. Considering the differentiated underlying mechanisms of word-meaning and sentence-meaning processing, it is essential to distinguish between these two levels of semantic processing. Lexical-semantic processing ability is at the forefront of language acquisition and a known area of impairment in individuals with ASD. Previous review studies have adequately summarized the behavioral performance of individuals with ASD for semantic processing at the single word level. However, a meta-analysis to investigate the cross-study brain activation patterns of individuals with ASD during lexical-semantics processing is still missing. The current study identified 11 published journal articles that used fMRI to investigate lexical-semantic processing in individuals with ASD. Activation likelihood estimation analysis was adopted to investigate whether atypical brain activation patterns in individuals with ASD were stable across studies and how the atypical performance manifested. The results revealed that the TD group activated the left inferior frontal gyrus, the left superior frontal gyrus, the left middle temporal gyrus, and the left middle frontal gyrus, which are brain regions responsible for completing lexical-semantics processing tasks. Like the TD group, the ASD group also showed activation in typical lexical-semantics processing brain regions, such as the left inferior frontal gyrus, the left middle temporal gyrus, and the left medial frontal gyrus. At the same time, differential brain activation patterns were steadily present between the ASD and TD groups. To be more specific, no brain region was found in the ASD group-TD group subtraction analysis, while the left superior frontal gyrus was present in the TD group -ASD group subtraction analysis. This finding indicated the atypical brain activation patterns of lexical-semantics processing in individuals with ASD manifested as hypoactivation in the left superior frontal gyrus. In addition, exploratory sub-analyses suggested that the atypical brain activation patterns of adults with ASD may differ from those of children and adolescents with ASD. Adults with ASD were more likely to show enhanced activation in the visual processing areas, while children and adolescents with ASD showed reduced activation in the left middle temporal gyrus. In summary, the current meta-analysis provided evidence for the atypical brain responses to lexical-semantics processing in verbal individuals with ASD from a cross-study perspective. Their atypical brain activation activities when processing meanings of words were consistent with the "decreased frontal lobe activation" hypothesis. The current study revealed novel findings which highlighted that distinguishing between different levels of language processing can help researchers identify the corresponding neural markers of certain types of language impairments in autistic populations. Due to the limited number of included studies, the current study had some limitations, such as only including fMRI studies and not considering the task, behavior and general language skills related factors. Future studies should take age, language background, general language skills, intervention experiences, and types of semantic processing into consideration.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Ample statistical learning (SL) studies have shown that individuals can perform word segmentation by tracking the likelihood of syllable co-occurrences in continuous speech. The classic “exposure-test” paradigm was widely used in this field, in which participants were first exposed to an artificial language and then tested in a forced choice task to assess learning effects. Recently, research has shown that participants' linguistic background, including their phonological and lexical experience, may result in experience-dependent SL. After a systematic review, we also discuss the direction for future SL studies. Specifically, we suggest that for studies involving Mandarin native speakers, researchers should carefully examine the separate and combined effects of various linguistic experience in order to better understand statistical word segmentation.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Statistical Learning (SL) has long been established as a powerful mechanism in language learning and development. Within this framework, transitional probability (TP) of various levels have been shown to confer differing task performance for adults. Recent studies have also highlighted the role of linguistic experience in the process of SL. However, it remains unclear whether different word lengths as well as varying levels of TPs may impact the segmentation of continuous speech. In the low TP condition, the superior outcome of disyllabic contrasts might stem from the Mandarin speakers' prior linguistic experience—their expectation that words should be of two syllables. For the trisyllabic contrasts, lower TPs may provide relatively weakened statistical regularities for tracking word boundaries, which may in turn lead to difficulty extracting words. Importantly, our findings show that when both factors present difficulties (e.g., trisyllabic contrasts in the low TP condition), such that the word length violates the listeners' expectation and the TPs do not provide high levels of consistency, word segmentation can no longer be supported. The current study showed for the first time that when combining TP and word length in the speech material, these two factors impact word segmentation in a complex manner. This study offers new insight for future SL designs as well as potentially informative directions in exploring how individual differences based on linguistic backgrounds may manifest itself in word segmentation tasks. Sixty native Mandarin monolinguals participated in a word segmentation task. An artificial language was designed with the same flat tone paired with 13 syllables, resulting in two disyllabic and three trisyllabic monotonic words. While only the segmental tier offered reliable information to segmentation, information from the suprasegmental level ensured that each word was phonologically legal in Mandarin. The words were then combined into two conditions of a monotonic artificial language: for the hTP language, all TPs within words were 1.0; whereas they were 0.6 in the lTP condition. Two types of nonwords (trisyllabic and disyllabic) were created for the test phase, then paired with target words of equal length in each trial. Adults were first exposed to the monotonic artificial language and then tested in a 2 alternative forced-choice task (2AFC) to decide whether a word or a nonword sounded more familiar. The mixed two-way ANOVA with word length (disyllables vs. trisyllables) as a within-subject factor and TP (high TP vs. low TP) as a between-subjects factor yielded nonsignificant effects for either word length or TP levels. There was also no significant interaction. A series of one-sample t-tests were conducted between the participants' average accuracy and chance level (.5). Participants preferred words over nonwords in most conditions except for trisyllabic contrasts in the low TP condition. Additional planned contrasts among the conditions revealed that when the TPs were low, participants performed significantly better in the disyllabic condition than in the trisyllabic condition; under the trisyllabic condition, high TP yielded better performance than low TP.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Pitch is a fundamental acoustic property shared by both language and music. However, there are different views on the processing of tonal pitch and musical pitch. Some studies support the “modularity view”, suggesting that tonal pitch and musical pitch are represented separately. In contrast, more studies support the “shared domain-general view”, implying that there are commonalities in the processing of tonal pitch and musical pitch based on their physical similarities. The existing studies have mostly focused on domain-general pitch transfer; nonetheless, they have not considered domain specificity of the tonal pitch as a linguistic element. Hence, it remains unclear whether domain specificity factors, such as categorical perception and complexity of different tonal language experiences on speakers’ pitch processing, play a role in musical pitch perception. To address the above issues, ninety participants were involved in the experiment, including native speakers of Mandarin Chinese (with a relatively simple pitch category), native speakers of Vietnamese (with a relatively complex pitch category), and native speakers of Russian (nonpitched control group). A 3 (group: Vietnamese vs. Chinese vs. Russian) × 2 (stimulus type: speech vs. music) between-and-within-subjects design was used. A continuum from [i?] (closed for Yinping in Chinese and Transverse in Vietnamese) to [i??] (closed for Yangping in Chinese and Acute in Vietnamese) and its musical counterpart was constructed. Participants were first tested in an ABX identification task to determine whether the stimulus X was similar to A or B and then an AX discrimination task to decide whether the two stimuli in the pair were identical. The experiment was performed in E-prime 3.0. The results showed that (1) both the Chinese and Vietnamese groups showed categorical perception for language and music pitches. There were no differences between language and music stimuli in category boundary width, within-category discrimination rate, between-category discrimination rate, or discrimination peak for either group. The Russian group’s identification curve did not show abrupt shifts, and their discrimination curve was relatively flat with multiple peaks, which indicates a continuous pattern significantly different from the two tonal language groups. (2) There were no significant differences between the Vietnamese group and the Chinese group in either the within-category discrimination rate or the between-category discrimination rate. The experimental results suggest that at the behavioral level, the pattern of native tonal categorical perception can transfer to musical pitch perception, but tonal complexity does not facilitate cross-domain musical pitch perception. The findings of this study support the “shared domain-general view” in terms of the influence of language on musical pitch processing.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2022-03-06
Abstract：
Pitch is a fundamental acoustic property shared by both language and music. However, there are different views on the processing of tonal pitch and musical pitch. Some studies support the “modularity view”, suggesting that tonal pitch and musical pitch are represented separately. In contrast, more studies support the “shared domain-general view”, implying that there are commonalities in the processing of tonal pitch and musical pitch based on their physical similarities. The existing studies have mostly focused on domain-general pitch transfer; nonetheless, they have not considered domain specificity of the tonal pitch as a linguistic element. Hence, it remains unclear whether domain specificity factors, such as categorical perception and complexity of different tonal language experiences on speakers’ pitch processing, play a role in musical pitch perception.
To address the above issues, ninety participants were involved in the experiment, including native speakers of Mandarin Chinese (with a relatively simple pitch category), native speakers of Vietnamese (with a relatively complex pitch category), and native speakers of Russian (nonpitched control group). A 3 (group: Vietnamese vs. Chinese vs. Russian) × 2 (stimulus type: speech vs. music) between-and-within-subjects design was used. A continuum from [i˥] (closed for Yinping in Chinese and Transverse in Vietnamese) to [i˧˥] (closed for Yangping in Chinese and Acute in Vietnamese) and its musical counterpart was constructed. Participants were first tested in an ABX identification task to determine whether the stimulus X was similar to A or B and then an AX discrimination task to decide whether the two stimuli in the pair were identical. The experiment was performed in E-prime 3.0.
The results showed that (1) both the Chinese and Vietnamese groups showed categorical perception for language and music pitches. There were no differences between language and music stimuli in category boundary width, within-category discrimination rate, between-category discrimination rate, or discrimination peak for either group. The Russian group’s identification curve did not show abrupt shifts, and their discrimination curve was relatively flat with multiple peaks, which indicates a continuous pattern significantly different from the two tonal language groups. (2) There were no significant differences between the Vietnamese group and the Chinese group in either the within-category discrimination rate or the between-category discrimination rate.
The experimental results suggest that at the behavioral level, the pattern of native tonal categorical perception can transfer to musical pitch perception, but tonal complexity does not facilitate cross-domain musical pitch perception. The findings of this study support the “shared domain-general view” in terms of the influence of language on musical pitch processing.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-12-17
Abstract： " " " "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-10-27
Abstract： Ample statistical learning (SL) studies have shown that individuals can perform word segmentation by tracking the likelihood of syllable co-occurrences in continuous speech. The classic “exposure-test” paradigm was widely used in this field, in which participants were first exposed to an artificial language and then tested in a forced choice task to assess learning effects. Recently, research has shown that participants’ linguistic background, including their phonological and lexical experience, may result in experience-dependent SL. After a systematic review, we also discuss the direction for future SL studies. Specifically, we suggest that for studies involving Mandarin native speakers, researchers should carefully examine the separate and combined effects of various linguistic experience in order to better understand statistical word segmentation.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology Subjects: Linguistics and Applied Linguistics >> Linguistics and Applied Linguistics submitted time 2020-03-10
Abstract： " " "
Subjects: Psychology >> Experimental Psychology submitted time 2019-10-10
Abstract： " The accurate perception of lexical tones in Mandarin Chinese is an important foundation for successfully understanding spoken Chinese. Previous behavioral studies have shown that the ability to perceive lexical tones in Mandarin declines in elderly individuals. In addition to other research areas related to language and aging, the central issue in phonetic perception during aging concerns whether perceptual changes related to aging are area-specific or area-general. The area-general language hypothesis of aging assumes that changes in language perception related to aging are caused by a decline in both general sensory perception function and high-order cognitive function. In contrast, the area-specific language hypothesis of aging assumes that changes in aging-related language perception are caused by specific deficits in language processing. Previous studies mostly detected the state of attention and focused on how area-general factors affect the processing of segmental phonemes in elderly individuals. The present study examined neurophysiological responses, particularly that of MMN, to explore whether the aging of lexical tone perception is language-specific for Mandarin. The current study recruited 22 healthy elderly participants (age range: 55.6~79.6 years) and 18 young participants (age range: 22.7~29.0 years). In a passive oddball task, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine Mandarin lexical tone perception. Three syllables from a lexical tone continuum were chosen as stimuli to form an across-category stimulus pair and a within-category stimulus pair for the ERP oddball task. A non-speech stimulus pair was generated on the basis of the within-category stimulus pair. During the experiment, participants were instructed to ignore the presented sounds while watching a self-selected movie. ERP data showed that in the across-category condition, compared with the young group, the elderly group had a smaller MMN, and there was no between-group difference in the within-category condition. In the young group, a non-speech tone elicited a larger MMN amplitude than a speech tone that shared the same pitch contour, while the elderly group did not show a speech enhancement effect. In addition, compared with that of the young group, the amplitude of the MMN elicited by the non-speech contrast in the elderly group was significantly smaller. The results indicated that the general decline in central auditory processing function was not related to the pre-attention processing of lexical tone. In addition, when the level at which the auditory input stimulus could be sensed was controlled according to peripheral hearing abilities, the decline in peripheral auditory function was not related to the preservation of or decline in lexical tone perception in the current study. In the current study, there is no evidence that the age-related decline in area-general factors affects tone perception in the pre-attention condition. On this basis, this study further speculated that the ability of elderly Mandarin-speaking individuals to perceive lexical tone in pre-attention conditions was preserved and only declined for specific languages, and the above-mentioned decline in the processing of knowledge of Mandarin tone category and the wider preservation of the processing of speech tones are language-specific. The present study provides evidence for the area-specific language hypothesis of aging."
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2019-08-25
Abstract： Verb argument structure complexity is manifested in four aspects: the number of arguments, the selection mode of arguments subcategorization, the assignment mode of θ-roles and the mapping of argument structure. Most empirical studies show that more arguments, alternating arguments subcategorization, alternating assignment of θ-roles and noncanonical mapping make the cognitive neural mechanisms of verb argument structure processing become more complicated. The main functional brain regions corresponding to processing of more arguments involve left inferior frontal gyrus and posterior perisylvian regions, the main functional brain regions corresponding to processing of alternating argument subcategorizations involve left inferior frontal gyrus, middle-posterior frontal lobesuperior temporal gyrus and middle-posterior temporal lobe , the main functional brain regions corresponding to processing of alternating assignment mode of θ-roles involve posterior perisylvian regions, left middle-posterior frontal lobe and inferior frontal gyrus, the main functional brain regions corresponding to processing of noncanonical mapping involve left inferior frontal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus and posterior temporal lobe. Perhaps, left inferior frontal gyrus involves initial syntactic processing, the determination of the subcategory of verbs, syntactic movement processing and semantic processing of unaccusative verbs, left middle-posterior frontal lobe involves initial syntactic processing and the determination of the subcategory of verbs , left superior temporal gyrus and middle-posterior temporal lobe involve surface syntactic structure processing and argument syntax-semantic integration, posterior perisylvian regions involve argument semantic reprensatation. The process of verb argument structure processing and lexical properties of verbs indicate that there are interaction effects between or among some complexities. Some other issues need further exploration, including the corresponding relationship between the complexity of the verb argument structure and the difficulty of its processing, the difficulty hierarchy of verb argument structure complexities processing and the cognitive neural mechanisms of interaction effects of them, as well as the cognitive neural mechanisms of Chinese verb argument structure complexity processing. " "
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