Children's associations between space and pitch are differentially shaped by language.

Musical properties, such as auditory pitch, are not expressed in the same way across cultures. In some languages, pitch is expressed in terms of spatial height (high vs. low), whereas others rely on thickness vocabulary (thick = low frequency vs. thin = high frequency). We investigated how children represent pitch in the face of this variable linguistic input by examining the developmental trajectory of linguistic and non-linguistic space-pitch associations in children who acquire Dutch (a height-pitch language) or Turkish (a thickness-pitch language). Five-year-olds, 7-year-olds, 9-year-olds, and 11-year-olds were tested for their understanding of pitch terminology and their associations of spatial dimensions with auditory pitch when no language was used. Across tasks, thickness-pitch associations were more robust than height-pitch associations. This was true for Turkish children, and also Dutch children not exposed to thickness-pitch vocabulary. Height-pitch associations, on the other hand, were not reliable-not even in Dutch-speaking children until age 11-the age when they demonstrated full comprehension of height-pitch terminology. Moreover, Turkish-speaking children reversed height-pitch associations. Taken together, these findings suggest thickness-pitch associations are acquired in similar ways by children from different cultures, but the acquisition of height-pitch associations is more susceptible to linguistic input. Overall, then, despite cross-cultural stability in some components, there is variation in how children come to represent musical pitch, one of the building blocks of music. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Children from diverse cultures differ in their understanding of music vocabulary and in their nonlinguistic associations between spatial dimensions and auditory pitch. Height-pitch mappings are acquired late and require additional scaffolding from language, whereas thickness-pitch mappings are acquired early and are less susceptible to language input. Space-pitch mappings are not static from birth to adulthood, but change over development, suggesting music cognition is shaped by cross-cultural experience.

The Alignment of Agent-First Preferences with Visual Event Representations: Contrasting German and Arabic.

How does non-linguistic, visual experience affect language production? A series of experiments addressed this question by examining linguistic and visual preferences for agent positions in transitive action scenarios. In Experiment 1, 30 native German speakers described event scenes where agents were positioned either to the right or to the left of patients. Produced utterances had longer speech onset times for scenes with right- rather than left-positioned agents, suggesting that the visual organization of events can affect sentence production. In Experiment 2 another cohort of 36 native German participants indicated their aesthetic preference for left- or right-positioned agents in mirrored scenes and displayed a preference for scenes with left-positioned agents. In Experiment 3, 37 Arabic native participants performed the same non-verbal task showing the reverse preference. Our findings demonstrate that non-linguistic visual preferences seem to affect sentence production, which in turn may rely on the writing system of a specific language.

Newborns are sensitive to the correspondence between auditory pitch and visuospatial elevation.

Amodal (redundant) and arbitrary cross-sensory feature associations involve the context-insensitive mapping of absolute feature values across sensory domains. Cross-sensory associations of a different kind, known as correspondences, involve the context-sensitive mapping of relative feature values. Are such correspondences in place at birth (like amodal associations), or are they learned from subsequently experiencing relevant feature co-occurrences in the world (like arbitrary associations)? To decide between these two possibilities, human newborns (median age = 44 hr) watched animations in which two balls alternately rose and fell together in space. The pitch of an accompanying sound rose and fell either congruently with this visual change (pitch rising and falling as the balls moved up and down), or incongruently (pitch rising and falling as the balls moved down and up). Newborns' looking behavior was sensitive to this congruence, providing the strongest indication to date that cross-sensory correspondences can be in place at birth.

Prelinguistic infants are sensitive to space-pitch associations found across cultures.

People often talk about musical pitch using spatial metaphors. In English, for instance, pitches can be "high" or "low" (i.e., height-pitch association), whereas in other languages, pitches are described as "thin" or "thick" (i.e., thickness-pitch association). According to results from psychophysical studies, metaphors in language can shape people's nonlinguistic space-pitch representations. But does language establish mappings between space and pitch in the first place, or does it only modify preexisting associations? To find out, we tested 4-month-old Dutch infants' sensitivity to height-pitch and thickness-pitch mappings using a preferential-looking paradigm. The infants looked significantly longer at cross-modally congruent stimuli for both space-pitch mappings, which indicates that infants are sensitive to these associations before language acquisition. The early presence of space-pitch mappings means that these associations do not originate from language. Instead, language builds on preexisting mappings, changing them gradually via competitive associative learning. Space-pitch mappings that are language-specific in adults develop from mappings that may be universal in infants.

Literacy overrides effects of animacy: A picture-naming study with pre-literate German children and adult speakers of German and Arabic.

Animacy plays a key role for human cognition, which is also reflected in the way humans process language. However, while experiments on sentence processing show reliable effects of animacy on word order and grammatical function assignment, effects of animacy on conjoined noun phrases (e.g., fish and shoe vs. shoe and fish) have yielded inconsistent results. In the present study, we tested the possibility that effects of animacy are outranked by reading and writing habits. We examined adult speakers of German (left-to-right script) and speakers of Arabic (right-to-left script), as well as German preschool children who do not yet know how to read and write. Participants were tested in a picture naming task that presented an animate and an inanimate entity next to one another. On half of the trials, the animate entity was located on the left and, on the other half, it was located on the right side of the screen. We found that adult German and Arabic speakers differed in their order of naming. Whereas German speakers were much more likely to mention the animate entity first when it was presented on the left than on the right, a reverse tendency was observed for speakers of Arabic. Thus, in literate adults, the ordering of conjoined noun phrases was influenced by reading and writing habits rather than by the animacy status of an entity. By contrast, pre-literate children preferred to start their utterances with the animate entity regardless of position, suggesting that effects of animacy in adults have been overwritten by effects of literacy.

The thickness of musical pitch: psychophysical evidence for linguistic relativity.

Do people who speak different languages think differently, even when they are not using language? To find out, we used nonlinguistic psychophysical tasks to compare mental representations of musical pitch in native speakers of Dutch and Farsi. Dutch speakers describe pitches as high (hoog) or low (laag), whereas Farsi speakers describe pitches as thin (nazok) or thick (koloft). Differences in language were reflected in differences in performance on two pitch-reproduction tasks, even though the tasks used simple, nonlinguistic stimuli and responses. To test whether experience using language influences mental representations of pitch, we trained native Dutch speakers to describe pitch in terms of thickness, as Farsi speakers do. After the training, Dutch speakers' performance on a nonlinguistic psychophysical task resembled the performance of native Farsi speakers. People who use different linguistic space-pitch metaphors also think about pitch differently. Language can play a causal role in shaping nonlinguistic representations of musical pitch.

Crossmodal Associations with Olfactory, Auditory, and Tactile Stimuli in Children and Adults.

People associate information with different senses but the mechanism by which this happens is unclear. Such associations are thought to arise from innate structural associations in the brain, statistical associations in the environment, via shared affective content, or through language. A developmental perspective on crossmodal associations can help determine which explanations are more likely for specific associations. Certain associations with pitch (e.g., pitch-height) have been observed early in infancy, but others may only occur late into childhood (e.g., pitch-size). In contrast, tactile-chroma associations have been observed in children, but not adults. One modality that has received little attention developmentally is olfaction. In the present investigation, we explored crossmodal associations from sound, tactile stimuli, and odor to a range of stimuli by testing a broad range of participants. Across the three modalities, we found little evidence for crossmodal associations in young children. This suggests an account based on innate structures is unlikely. Instead, the number and strength of associations increased over the lifespan. This suggests that experience plays a crucial role in crossmodal associations from sound, touch, and smell to other senses.

Referent Cueing, Position, and Animacy as Accessibility Factors in Visually Situated Sentence Production.

Speakers' readiness to describe event scenes using active or passive constructions has previously been attributed-among other factors-to the accessibility of referents. While most research has highlighted the accessibility of agents, the present study examines whether patients' accessibility can be modulated by means of visual preview of the patient character (derived accessibility), as well as by manipulating the animacy status of patients (inherent accessibility). Crucially, we also examined whether effects of accessibility were amenable to the visuospatial position of the patient by presenting the patient character either to the left or to the right of the agent. German native speakers were asked to describe drawings depicting event scenes while their gaze and speech were recorded. Our results show that making patients more accessible using derived and inherent accessibility factors led to more produced passives, shorter speech onsets, and a reduction of fixations on patients. Complementing previous research on agent accessibility, our findings demonstrate that the accessibility of patients affected both sentence production and looking behavior. While effects were observed for both inherent and derived accessibility, they appeared to be more pronounced for the latter. Regarding character position, we observed a significant effect of position on participants' gaze patterns and structural choices, suggesting that position itself can be considered an accessibility-related factor. Importantly, the position of a patient also interacted with our manipulation of its accessibility via visual preview. Participants produced more passives after preview than no preview for left-positioned but not for right-positioned patients, demonstrating that effects of patient accessibility (i.e., visual preview) were susceptible to character position. A similar interaction was observed for participants' viewing patterns. These findings provide the first evidence that the position of a referent is a factor that interacts with other accessibility-related factors (i.e., cueing), emphasizing the need of controlling for position effects when testing referent accessibility.

Space-pitch associations differ in their susceptibility to language.

To what extent are links between musical pitch and space universal, and to what extent are they shaped by language? There is contradictory evidence in support of both universality and linguistic relativity presently, leaving the question open. To address this, speakers of Dutch who talk about pitch in terms of spatial height and speakers of Turkish who use a thickness metaphor were tested in simple nonlinguistic space-pitch association tasks. Both groups showed evidence of a thickness-pitch association, but differed significantly in their height-pitch associations, suggesting the latter may be more susceptible to language. When participants had to match pitches to spatial stimuli where height and thickness were opposed (i.e., a thick line high in space vs. a thin line low in space), Dutch and Turkish differed in their relative preferences. Whereas Turkish participants predominantly opted for a thickness-pitch interpretation-even if this meant a reversal of height-pitch mappings-Dutch participants favored a height-pitch interpretation more often. These findings provide new evidence that speakers of different languages vary in their space-pitch associations, while at the same time showing such associations are not equally susceptible to linguistic influences. Some space-pitch (i.e., height-pitch) associations are more malleable than others (i.e., thickness-pitch).

Describing Events: Changes in Eye Movements and Language Production Due to Visual and Conceptual Properties of Scenes.

How can a visual environment shape our utterances? A variety of visual and conceptual factors appear to affect sentence production, such as the visual cueing of patients or agents, their position relative to one another, and their animacy. These factors have previously been studied in isolation, leaving the question about their interplay open. The present study brings them together to examine systematic variations in eye movements, speech initiation and voice selection in descriptions of visual scenes. A sample of 44 native speakers of German were asked to describe depicted event scenes presented on a computer screen, while both their utterances and eye movements were recorded. Participants were instructed to produce one-sentence descriptions. The pictures depicted scenes with animate agents and either animate or inanimate patients who were situated to the right or to the left of agents. Half of the patients were preceded by a visual cue - a small circle appearing for 60 ms on a blank screen in the place of patients. The results show that scenes with left- rather than right-positioned patients lead to longer speech onset times, a higher probability of passive sentences and looks toward the patient. In addition, scenes with animate patients received more looks and elicited more passive utterances than scenes with inanimate patients. Visual cueing did not produce significant changes in speech, even though there were more looks to cued vs. non-cued referents, demonstrating that cueing only impacted initial scene scanning patterns but not speech. Our findings demonstrate that when examined together rather than separately, visual and conceptual factors of event scenes influence different aspects of behavior. In comparison to cueing that only affected eye movements, patient animacy also acted on the syntactic realization of utterances, whereas patient position in addition altered their onset. In terms of time course, visual influences are rather short-lived, while conceptual factors have long-lasting effects.

Quantifier comprehension is linked to linguistic rather than to numerical skills. Evidence from children with Down syndrome and Williams syndrome.

Comprehending natural language quantifiers (like many, all, or some) involves linguistic and numerical abilities. However, the extent to which both factors play a role is controversial. In order to determine the specific contributions of linguistic and number skills in quantifier comprehension, we examined two groups of participants that differ in their language abilities while their number skills appear to be similar: Participants with Down syndrome (DS) and participants with Williams syndrome (WS). Compared to rather poor linguistic skills of individuals with DS, individuals with WS display relatively advanced language abilities. Participants with WS also outperformed participants with DS in a quantifier comprehension task while number knowledge did not differ between the two groups. When compared to typically developing (TD) children of the same mental age, participants with WS displayed similar levels regarding quantifier abilities, but participants with DS performed worse than the control group. Language abilities but not number skills also significantly predicted quantifier knowledge in a linear regression analysis, stressing the importance of linguistic abilities for quantifier comprehension. In addition to determining the skills that are relevant for comprehending quantifiers, our findings provide the first demonstration of how quantifiers are acquired by individuals with DS and WS, an issue not investigated so far.

Thrombolysis in stroke patients: Comparability of point-of-care versus central laboratory international normalized ratio.

BACKGROUND: In acute stroke patients, thrombolysis is one gold standard therapy option within the first four hours after the ischemic event. A contraindication for thrombolysis is an International Normalized Ratio (INR) value >1.7. Since time is brain, rapid and reliable INR results are fundamental. Aim was to compare INR values determined by central laboratory (CL) analyzer and Point-of-Care Testing(POCT)-device and to evaluate the quality of POCT performance in cases of potential therapeutic thrombolysis at a certified stroke unit. METHODS: In 153 patients INR measurements using POCT-devices (HEMOCHRON Signature Elite®) were compared to INR measurements (BCS®XP) performed at the central laboratory. Outlier evaluation was performed regarding the critical thrombolysis cut-off. RESULTS: Overall, we demonstrated a significant correlation (r = 0.809, p<0.0001) between both measurement methods. Mean value of the absolute difference between CL-INR and POCT-INR measurements was 0.23. In 95.4% of these cases, no differences regarding the critical cut-off (INR 1.7) were observed. POCT-INR values tended to be higher than the CL-INR values (p = 0.01). In 4.6% cases, a different value regarding thrombolysis cut-off was found. All patients were >75 years. CONCLUSIONS: POCT-INR measurements based on our POCT concept are suitable to determine INR values in critical stroke patients. Nevertheless, outlier evaluation is mandatory.

Comparability of Point-of-Care versus Central Laboratory Hemoglobin Determination in Emergency Patients at a Supra-Maximal Care Hospital.

Fulfilling the requirements of point-of-care testing (POCT) training regarding proper execution of measurements and compliance with internal and external quality control specifications is a great challenge. Our aim was to compare the values of the highly critical parameter hemoglobin (Hb) determined with POCT devices and central laboratory analyzer in the highly vulnerable setting of an emergency department in a supra maximal care hospital to assess the quality of POCT performance. In 2548 patients, Hb measurements using POCT devices (POCT-Hb) were compared with Hb measurements performed at the central laboratory (Hb-ZL). Additionally, sub collectives (WHO anemia classification, patients with Hb <8 g/dl and suprageriatric patients (age >85y.) were analyzed. Overall, the correlation between POCT-Hb and Hb-ZL was highly significant (r = 0.96, p<0.001). Mean difference was -0.44g/dl. POCT-Hb values tended to be higher than Hb-ZL values (t(2547) = 36.1, p<0.001). Standard deviation of the differences was 0.62 g/dl. Only in 26 patients (1%), absolute differences >2.5g/dl occurred. McNemar´s test revealed significant differences regarding anemia diagnosis according to WHO definition for male, female and total patients (♂ p<0.001; ♀ p<0.001, total p<0.001). Hb-ZL resulted significantly more often in anemia diagnosis. In samples with Hb<8g/dl, McNemar´s test yielded no significant difference (p = 0.169). In suprageriatric patients, McNemar´s test revealed significant differences regarding anemia diagnosis according to WHO definition in male, female and total patients (♂ p<0.01; ♀ p = 0.002, total p<0.001). The difference between Hb-ZL and POCT-Hb with Hb<8g/dl was not statistically significant (<8g/dl, p = 1.000). Overall, we found a highly significant correlation between the analyzed hemoglobin concentration measurement methods, i.e. POCT devices and at the central laboratory. The results confirm the successful implementation of the presented POCT concept. Nevertheless some limitations could be identified in anemic patients stressing the importance of carefully examining clinically implausible results.

Spatial Congruity Effects Reveal Metaphorical Thinking, not Polarity Correspondence.

Spatial congruity effects have often been interpreted as evidence for metaphorical thinking, but an alternative account based on polarity correspondence (a.k.a. markedness) has challenged this view. Here we compared metaphor- and polarity-correspondence-based explanations for spatial congruity effects, using musical pitch as a testbed. In one experiment, English speakers classified high- and low-frequency pitches as "high" and "low," or as "front" and "back," to determine whether space-pitch congruity effects could be elicited by any marked spatial continuum. Although both pairs of terms describe bipolar spatial continuums, we found congruity effects only for high/low judgments, indicating that markedness is not sufficient to produce space-pitch congruity effects. A second experiment confirmed that there were no space-pitch congruity effects for another pair of terms that have clear markedness (big/small), but which do not denote spatial height. By contrast, this experiment showed congruity effects for words that cued an appropriate vertical spatial schema (tall/short), even though these words are not used conventionally in English to describe pitches, ruling out explanations for the observed pattern of results based on verbal polysemy. Together, results suggest that space-pitch congruity effects reveal metaphorical uses of spatial schemas, not polarity correspondence effects.