The effects of discourse coherence on the persistence of sentence structures.

We studied the role of discourse coherence relations on structure formulation in sentence production by examining whether a connective, an essential signal of coherence relations, modulates the tendency for speakers to reuse sentence structures (i.e., structural priming). We further examined three possible modulating factors: the type of connectives (additive vs. adversative connective), event similarity (similar event vs. different event), and topic cohesion (with or without available anaphoric antecedent). In four structural priming experiments, native Dutch participants were asked to read either a Dutch double object sentence or a prepositional object sentence and describe pictures that depicted ditransitive events. Critically, the prime and the target either were linked by a connective (en "and" or maar "but") or were not linked. The verb overlap between the prime and the target was also manipulated. In Experiment 1, the presence of en facilitated structural priming, but only when the verbs were different. In Experiment 2, maar reduced structural priming when the verbs were repeated. Experiment 3 replicated the findings of Experiments 1 and 2 in a within-subjects design. In Experiment 4, there was no referential link between the sentences. Now there was no connective effect on structural priming. Taken together, we demonstrated that the insertion of a connective influences syntactic persistence. The connective effects vary across semantic properties of the connectives, event similarity, and referential continuity, suggesting that the production of sentence structure is modulated by speakers' prediction about listeners' inference of coherence relations between consecutive utterances. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Purposeful listening in challenging conditions: A study of prediction during consecutive interpreting in noise.

Prediction is often used during language comprehension. However, studies of prediction have tended to focus on L1 listeners in quiet conditions. Thus, it is unclear how listeners predict outside the laboratory and in specific communicative settings. Here, we report two eye-tracking studies which used a visual-world paradigm to investigate whether prediction during a consecutive interpreting task differs from prediction during a listening task in L2 listeners, and whether L2 listeners are able to predict in the noisy conditions that might be associated with this communicative setting. In a first study, thirty-six Dutch-English bilinguals either just listened to, or else listened to and then consecutively interpreted, predictable sentences presented on speech-shaped sound. In a second study, another thirty-six Dutch-English bilinguals carried out the same tasks in clear speech. Our results suggest that L2 listeners predict the meaning of upcoming words in noisy conditions. However, we did not find that predictive eye movements depended on task, nor that L2 listeners predicted upcoming word form. We also did not find a difference in predictive patterns when we compared our two studies. Thus, L2 listeners predict in noisy circumstances, supporting theories which posit that prediction regularly takes place in comprehension, but we did not find evidence that a subsequent production task or noise affects semantic prediction.

Semantic interference affects speech production by increasing disfluencies, not errors.

Several studies have shown that different types of disfluency occur depending on the language production stage at which people experience difficulties. The current study combined a network task and a picture-word interference task to analyse whether lexical-semantic difficulty triggers errors and disfluencies in connected-speech production. The participants produced more disfluencies in the presence of a semantically related distractor word than an unrelated distractor word, while few semantic errors were made. These results support the hypothesis that difficulties at distinct stages of language production lead to distinct patterns of disfluency, with lexical-semantic difficulties leading to self-corrections and silent pauses. The results also have implications for the role of the monitoring system in connected-speech production.

Can object identification difficulty be predicted based on disfluencies and eye-movements in connected speech?

In the current study, we asked whether delays in the earliest stages of picture naming elicit disfluency. To address this question, we used a network task, where participants describe the route taken by a marker through visually presented networks of objects. Additionally, given that disfluencies are arguably multifactorial, we combined this task with eye tracking, to be able to disentangle disfluency related to word preparation from other factors (e.g., stalling strategy). We used visual blurring, which hinders visual identification of the items and thereby slows down selection of a lexical concept. We tested the effect of this manipulation on disfluency production and visual attention. Blurriness did not lead to more disfluency on average and viewing times decreased with blurred pictures. However, multivariate pattern analyses revealed that a classifier could predict above chance, from the pattern of disfluency, whether each participant was about to name blurred or control pictures. Impeding the conceptual generation of a message therefore affected the pattern of disfluencies of each participant individually, but this pattern was not consistent from one participant to another. Additionally, some of the disfluency and eye-movement variables correlated with individual cognitive differences, in particular with inhibition.

Don't blame yourself: Conscious source monitoring modulates feedback control during speech production.

Sensory feedback plays an important role in speech motor control. One of the main sources of evidence for this is studies in which online auditory feedback is perturbed during ongoing speech. In motor control, it is therefore crucial to distinguish between sensory feedback and externally generated sensory events. This is called source monitoring. Previous altered feedback studies have taken non-conscious source monitoring for granted, as automatic responses to altered sensory feedback imply that the feedback changes are processed as self-caused. However, the role of conscious source monitoring is unclear. The current study investigated whether conscious source monitoring modulates responses to unexpected pitch changes in auditory feedback. During the first block, some participants spontaneously attributed the pitch shifts to themselves (self-blamers) while others attributed them to an external source (other-blamers). Before Block 2, all participants were informed that the pitch shifts were experimentally induced. The self-blamers then showed a reduction in response magnitude in Block 2 compared with Block 1, while the other-blamers did not. This suggests that conscious source monitoring modulates responses to altered auditory feedback, such that consciously ascribing feedback to oneself leads to larger compensation responses. These results can be accounted for within the dominant comparator framework, where conscious source monitoring could modulate the gain on sensory feedback. Alternatively, the results can be naturally explained from an inferential framework, where conscious knowledge may bias the priors in a Bayesian process to determine the most likely source of a sensory event.

Moving visual world experiments online? A web-based replication of Dijkgraaf, Hartsuiker, and Duyck (2017) using PCIbex and WebGazer.js.

The visual world paradigm is one of the most influential paradigms to study real-time language processing. The present study tested whether visual world studies can be moved online, using PCIbex software (Zehr & Schwarz, 2018) and the WebGazer.js algorithm (Papoutsaki et al., 2016) to collect eye-movement data. Experiment 1 was a fixation task in which the participants looked at a fixation cross in multiple positions on the computer screen. Experiment 2 was a web-based replication of a visual world experiment by Dijkgraaf et al. (2017). Firstly, both experiments revealed that the spatial accuracy of the data allowed us to distinguish looks across the four quadrants of the computer screen. This suggest that the spatial resolution of WebGazer.js is fine-grained enough for most visual world experiments (which typically involve a two-by-two quadrant-based set-up of the visual display). Secondly, both experiments revealed a delay of roughly 300 ms in the time course of the eye movements, possibly caused by the internal processing speed of the browser or WebGazer.js. This delay can be problematic in studying questions that require a fine-grained temporal resolution and requires further investigation.

Structure prediction occurs when it is needed: Evidence from visual-world structural priming in Dutch comprehension.

Arai et al. (2007) showed that structural priming in the comprehension of English dative sentences only occurred when the verb was repeated between prime and target, suggesting a lexically-dependent mechanism of structure prediction. However, a recent study in Mandarin comprehension found abstract (verb-independent) structural priming and such priming was stronger when the structure was unexpected (e.g., when a verb biased toward the double object [DO] structure is followed by an unexpected prepositional object [PO] structure; Chen et al., 2022). The latter finding of inverse preference priming is consistent with error-based implicit learning accounts, which suggest structural priming is based on learning from prediction errors (Chang et al., 2006). Here we tested the mechanism of structure prediction (lexically-dependent vs. abstract) in four visual-world comprehension experiments in Dutch. Dutch is a Germanic language like English; it is biased toward the PO structure like Mandarin. We not only found structural priming when the verb was repeated, but also when the verb was different: During target sentence processing, comprehenders looked more often at the recipient (predicting a DO structure) than at the theme (predicting a PO structure) after a DO prime and vice versa after a PO prime. Importantly, abstract structural priming only occurred when the target structure was relatively unpredictable. We interpret the inconsistent findings across languages in terms of an effortful process of structure prediction in comprehension (Pickering & Gambi, 2018): it occurs when it is needed to disambiguate the postverbal arguments, but not when it is optional. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Drifting pitch awareness after exposure to altered auditory feedback.

Various studies have claimed that the sense of agency is based on a comparison between an internal estimate of an action's outcome and sensory feedback. With respect to speech, this presumes that speakers have a stable prearticulatory representation of their own speech. However, recent research suggests that the sense of agency is flexible and thus in some contexts we may feel like we produced speech that was not actually produced by us. The current study tested whether the estimated pitch of one's articulation (termed pitch awareness) is affected by manipulated auditory feedback. In four experiments, 56 participants produced isolated vowels while being exposed to pitch-shifted auditory feedback. After every vocalization, participants indicated whether they thought the feedback was higher or lower than their actual production. After exposure to a block of high-pitched auditory feedback (+500 cents pitch shift), participants were more likely to label subsequent auditory feedback as "lower than my actual production," suggesting that prolonged exposure to high-pitched auditory feedback led to a drift in participants' pitch awareness. The opposite pattern was found after exposure to a constant -500 cents pitch shift. This suggests that pitch awareness is not solely based on a prearticulatory representation of intended speech or on a sensory prediction, but also on sensory feedback. We propose that this drift in pitch awareness could be indicative of a sense of agency over the pitch-shifted auditory feedback in the exposure block. If so, this suggests that the sense of agency over vocal output is flexible.

Error-based structure prediction in language comprehension: Evidence from verb bias effects in a visual-world structural priming paradigm for Mandarin Chinese.

Structural priming studies in production have demonstrated stronger priming effects for unexpected sentence structures (inverse preference effect). This is consistent with error-based implicit learning accounts that assume learning depends on prediction error. Such prediction error can be verb-specific, leading to strong priming when a verb that is for instance biased toward the prepositional object (PO) structure occurs with an unexpected double object (DO) structure. However, it is unclear whether this mechanism also holds for language comprehension, especially for languages like Mandarin Chinese, which arguably depends strongly on semantics to predict syntax in comprehension. Experiment 1 was a norming study (N = 367) that measured the biases (DO vs. PO) of 48 Mandarin Chinese dative verbs. Experiment 2 (N = 72) crossed verb bias (DO-bias or PO-bias) and structure (DO or PO) of prime sentences in a visual-world paradigm, to examine whether Mandarin comprehenders show an inverse preference effect. The priming effect is expressed as the proportion of looks to the predicted referent (i.e., the recipient after a DO-prime, the theme after a PO-prime), for two critical time windows during target sentence processing: the verb and the first syllable of the first postverbal noun (which was identical in theme and recipient). There was priming in both time windows, even though the verb differed between prime and target. Importantly, there was an inverse preference effect (i.e., stronger priming after a DO prime with a PO-biased verb than with a DO-biased verb) in the second time window. These results provide evidence for an error-based structure prediction system in comprehension. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Are foreign-accented speakers that 'incredible'? The impact of the speaker's indexical properties on sentence processing.

This study investigated the impact of the speaker's identity generated by the voice on sentence processing. We examined the relation between ERP components associated with the processing of the voice (N100 and P200) from voice onset and those associated with sentence processing (N400 and late positivity) from critical word onset. We presented Dutch native speakers with sentences containing true (and known) information, unknown (but true) information or information violating world knowledge and had them perform a truth evaluation task. Sentences were spoken either in a native or a foreign accent. Truth evaluation judgments were not different for statements spoken by the native-accented and the foreign-accented speakers. Reduced N100 and P200 were observed in response to the foreign speaker's voice compared to the native speaker's. While statements containing unknown information or world knowledge violations generated a larger N400 than true statements in the native condition, they were not significantly different in the foreign condition, suggesting shallower processing of foreign-accented speech. The N100 was a significant predictor for the N400 in that the reduced N100 observed for the foreign speaker compared to the native speaker was related to a smaller N400 effect. These finding suggest that the impression of the speaker that listeners rapidly form from the voice affects semantic processing, which confirms that speaker's identity and language comprehension cannot be dissociated.

On the limits of shared syntactic representations: When word order variation blocks priming between an artificial language and Dutch.

Several studies used artificial language (AL) learning paradigms to investigate structural priming between languages in early phases of learning. The presence of such priming would indicate that these languages share syntactic representations. Muylle et al. (2020a) found similar priming of transitives and ditransitives between Dutch (SVO order) and an AL with either SVO or SOV order. However, it is unclear whether such sharing would occur if the AL allows both the same and different word order as the L1. Indeed, the presence of a (easy to share) similar structure might block (i.e., impede) sharing of a less similar structure. Here, we report 2 experiments that each tested 48 Dutch native speakers on an AL that allowed both SVO and SOV order in transitive and ditransitive sentences. We assessed both within-AL and AL-Dutch priming. We predicted (a) priming of both structure and word order within the AL, and (b) weaker AL-Dutch priming from SOV versus SVO sentences due to the presence of SVO sentences in the AL. Indeed, cross-linguistic priming was significantly weaker in SOV versus SVO conditions, but the blocking hypothesis was only supported by the transitive results. Unexpectedly, in the absence of a condition with verb overlap between prime and target sentences, no priming was found in AL and Dutch target conditions without verb overlap (Experiment 1), but priming emerged when a verb overlap condition was added (Experiment 2). This finding suggests that lexical repetition across sentences is crucial to establish abstract syntactic representations during early L2 acquisition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Speaking with an alien voice: Flexible sense of agency during vocal production.

Speakers monitor auditory feedback during speech production in order to correct for speech errors. The comparator model proposes that this process is supported by comparing sensory feedback to internal predictions of the sensory consequences of articulation. Additionally, this comparison process is proposed to support the sense of agency over vocal output. The current study tests this hypothesis by asking whether mismatching auditory feedback leads to a decrease in the sense of agency as measured by speakers' responses to pitch-shifted feedback. Participants vocalized while auditory feedback was unexpectedly and briefly pitch-shifted. In addition, in one block, the entire vocalization's pitch was baseline-shifted ("alien voice"), while it was not in the other block ("normal voice"). Participants compensated for the pitch shifts even in the alien voice condition, suggesting that agency was flexible. This is problematic for the classic comparator model, where a mismatching feedback would lead to a loss of agency. Alternative models are discussed in light of these findings, including an adapted comparator model and the inferential account, which suggests that agency is inferred from the joint contribution of several multisensory sources of evidence. Together, these findings suggest that internal representations of one's own voice are more flexible than often assumed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of explicit memory in syntactic persistence: Effects of lexical cueing and load on sentence memory and sentence production.

Speakers' memory of sentence structure can persist and modulate the syntactic choices of subsequent utterances (i.e., structural priming). Much research on structural priming posited a multifactorial account by which an implicit learning process and a process related to explicit memory jointly contribute to the priming effect. Here, we tested two predictions from that account: (1) that lexical repetition facilitates the retrieval of sentence structures from memory; (2) that priming is partly driven by a short-term explicit memory mechanism with limited resources. In two pairs of structural priming and sentence structure memory experiments, we examined the effects of structural priming and its modulation by lexical repetition as a function of cognitive load in native Dutch speakers. Cognitive load was manipulated by interspersing the prime and target trials with easy or difficult mathematical problems. Lexical repetition boosted both structural priming (Experiments 1a-2a) and memory for sentence structure (Experiments 1b-2b) and did so with a comparable magnitude. In Experiment 1, there were no load effects, but in Experiment 2, with a stronger manipulation of load, both the priming and memory effects were reduced with a larger cognitive load. The findings support an explicit memory mechanism in structural priming that is cue-dependent and attention-demanding, consistent with a multifactorial account of structural priming.

Towards a New Model of Verbal Monitoring.

As all human activities, verbal communication is fraught with errors. It is estimated that humans produce around 16,000 words per day, but the word that is selected for production is not always correct and neither is the articulation always flawless. However, to facilitate communication, it is important to limit the number of errors. This is accomplished via the verbal monitoring mechanism. A body of research over the last century has uncovered a number of properties of the mechanisms at work during verbal monitoring. Over a dozen routes for verbal monitoring have been postulated. However, to date a complete account of verbal monitoring does not exist. In the current paper we first outline the properties of verbal monitoring that have been empirically demonstrated. This is followed by a discussion of current verbal monitoring models: the perceptual loop theory, conflict monitoring, the hierarchical state feedback control model, and the forward model theory. Each of these models is evaluated given empirical findings and theoretical considerations. We then outline lacunae of current theories, which we address with a proposal for a new model of verbal monitoring for production and perception, based on conflict monitoring models. Additionally, this novel model suggests a mechanism of how a detected error leads to a correction. The error resolution mechanism proposed in our new model is then tested in a computational model. Finally, we outline the advances and predictions of the model.

English norming data for 423 short animated action movie clips.

We present a set of 423 animated action movie clips of 3 s, that we expect to be useful for a variety of experimental paradigms in which sentences are elicited. The clips either depict an action involving only an agent (intransitive action, e.g., a policeman that is sleeping), an action involving an agent and a patient (transitive action, e.g., a policeman shooting a pirate), or an action involving an agent, an object, and a beneficiary (ditransitive action, e.g., a policeman showing a hat to a pirate). In order to verify that the movie clips (when presented with a verb) indeed elicit intransitive, transitive, or ditransitive sentences, we conducted a written norming study with native speakers of American English. We asked 203 participants to describe the clips with a sentence using a given verb. The movie clips elicited valid responses in 90% of the cases. Moreover, there was an active response bias for the transitives, and a prepositional object dative (PO-dative) response bias for the ditransitives. This bias differed between verbs in the ditransitives. A list is provided with all clips and the proportion of each response type for each clip. The clips are stored as MP4-files and can be freely downloaded.

Structural alignment and its prosocial effects in first and second languages.

The present study examined structural alignment (prepositional object dative and double object dative) and its prosocial effects in Spanish-English bilinguals (English L2) and native English speakers (English L1). A scripted picture description paradigm in which a confederate and participant alternately described pictures was used. L1 and L2 speakers of English displayed comparable levels of structural alignment. In a second phase of the experiment we show that after being exposed to structural alignment by the confederate, L1 but not L2 participants displayed an increase in prosocial behavior as reflected by the time they were willing to help with an extra task. Possible explanations and implications are then discussed.

Short exposure to a foreign accent impacts subsequent cognitive processes.

Although speaking a foreign language is undoubtedly an asset, foreign-accented speakers are usually perceived negatively. It is unknown, however, to what extent this bias impacts cognitive processes. Here, we used ERPs and pupillometry to investigate whether the negative bias generated by a short exposure to a foreign accent influences the overall perception of a speaker, even when the person is not speaking. We compared responses to written sentence comprehension, memory and visual perception, associated with native speakers (high and low social status) and a foreign-accented speaker (high social status). The foreign-accented speaker consistently fell in-between the high-status native speaker and the low-status native speaker. This is the first physiological demonstration that short exposure to a foreign accent impacts subsequent cognitive processes, and that foreign-accented speakers seem to be considered less reliable than native speakers, even with equally high social status. Awareness of this bias is essential to avoid discriminations in our multilingual society.

Monitoring speech production and comprehension: Where is the second-language delay?

Research on error monitoring suggests that bilingual Dutch-English speakers are slower to correct some speech errors in their second language (L2) as opposed to their first language (L1). But which component of self-monitoring is slowed down in L2, error detection or interruption and repair of the error? This study charted the time course of monitoring in monolingual English speakers and bilingual Dutch-English speakers in language production and language comprehension, with the aim of pinpointing the component(s) of monitoring that cause an L2 disadvantage. First, we asked whether phonological errors are interrupted more slowly in L2. An analysis of data from three speech error elicitation experiments indeed showed that Dutch-English bilinguals were slower to stop speaking after an error had been detected in their L2 (English) than in their L1 (Dutch), at least for interrupted errors. A similar L2 disadvantage was found when comparing the L2 of Dutch-English bilinguals to the L1 of English monolinguals. Second, monolingual English speakers and bilingual Dutch-English speakers performed a picture naming task, a production monitoring task, and a comprehension monitoring task. Bilingual English speakers were slower in naming pictures in their L2 than monolingual English speakers. However, the production monitoring task and comprehension monitoring task yielded comparable response latencies between monolinguals in their L1 and bilinguals in their L2, indicating that monitoring processes in L2 are not generally slower. We suggest that interruption and repair are planned concurrently and that the difficulty of repairing in L2 triggers a slow-down in L2 interruption.

Does passive sound attenuation affect responses to pitch-shifted auditory feedback?

The role of auditory feedback in vocal production has mainly been investigated by altered auditory feedback (AAF) in real time. In response, speakers compensate by shifting their speech output in the opposite direction. Current theory suggests this is caused by a mismatch between expected and observed feedback. A methodological issue is the difficulty to fully isolate the speaker's hearing so that only AAF is presented to their ears. As a result, participants may be presented with two simultaneous signals. If this is true, an alternative explanation is that responses to AAF depend on the contrast between the manipulated and the non-manipulated feedback. This hypothesis was tested by varying the passive sound attenuation (PSA). Participants vocalized while auditory feedback was unexpectedly pitch shifted. The feedback was played through three pairs of headphones with varying amounts of PSA. The participants' responses were not affected by the different levels of PSA. This suggests that across all three headphones, PSA is either good enough to make the manipulated feedback dominant, or differences in PSA are too small to affect the contribution of non-manipulated feedback. Overall, the results suggest that it is important to realize that non-manipulated auditory feedback could affect responses to AAF.