Shared structuring resources across domains: double task effects from linguistic processing on the structural integration of pitch sequences.

Many studies have reported evidence suggesting that resources involved in linguistic structural processing might be domain-general by demonstrating interference from simultaneously presented non-linguistic stimuli on the processing of sentences (Slevc, Rosenberg, & Patel, 2009 ). However, the complexity of the analysed linguistic processes often precludes the interpretation of such interference as being based on structural-rather than more general-processing resources (Perruchet & Poulin-Charronnat, 2013 ). We therefore used linguistic structure as a source of interference for another structural processing task, by asking participants to read sentences while processing experimentally manipulated pitch sequences. Half of the sentences contained a segment with either an "out-of-context" sentential violation or a "garden path" unexpectancy. Furthermore, the pitch sequences contained a cluster shift, which did or did not align with the sentential unexpectancies. A two-tone recognition task followed each pitch sequence, providing an index of the strength with which this structural boundary was processed. When a "garden path" unexpectancy (requiring structural reintegration) accompanied the cluster shift, the structural boundary induced by this shift was processed more shallowly. No such effect occurred with non-reintegratable "out-of-context" sentential violations. Furthermore, the discussed interference effect can be isolated from general pitch recognition performance, supporting the interpretation of such interference as being based on overlapping structural processing resources (Kljajevic, 2010 ; Patel, 2003 ).

Functional mechanisms involved in the internal inhibition of taboo words.

The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain processes associated with the inhibition of socially undesirable speech. It is tested whether the inhibition of undesirable speech is solely related to brain areas associated with classical stop signal tasks or rather also involves brain areas involved in endogenous self-control. During the experiment, subjects had to do a SLIP task, which was designed to elicit taboo or neutral spoonerisms. Here we show that the internal inhibition of taboo words activates the right inferior frontal gyrus, an area that has previously been associated with externally triggered inhibition. This finding strongly suggests that external social rules become internalized and act as a stop-signal.

A step into the anarchist's mind: examining political attitudes and ideology through event-related brain potentials.

The present study investigates patterns of event-related brain potentials following the presentation of attitudinal stimuli among political moderates (N=12) and anarchists (N=11). We used a modified oddball paradigm to investigate the evaluative inconsistency effect elicited by stimuli embedded in a sequence of contextual stimuli with an opposite valence. Increased late positive potentials (LPPs) of extreme political attitudes were observed. Moreover, this LPP enhancement was larger among anarchists than among moderates, indicating that an extreme political attitude of a moderate differs from an extreme political attitude of an anarchist. The discussion elaborates on the meaning of attitude extremity for moderates and extremists.

When the brain tames the tongue: covert editing of inappropriate language.

We investigated whether speakers can use an internal channel to monitor their speech for taboo utterances and prevent these from being spoken aloud. Therefore event-related potentials were measured while participants carried out the SLIP task. In this task, speech errors were elicited that could either result in taboo words (taboo-eliciting trials) or neutral words (neutral-eliciting trials). In taboo-eliciting trials, there was an augmented negative wave around 600 ms after the pronunciation cue even though there were no overt errors. This component has previously been interpreted as reflecting conflict. These results indicate that taboo utterances can indeed be detected and corrected internally.

Are phonological influences on lexical (mis)selection the result of a monitoring bias?

A monitoring bias account is often used to explain speech error patterns that seem to be the result of an interactive language production system, like phonological influences on lexical selection errors. A biased monitor is suggested to detect and covertly correct certain errors more often than others. For instance, this account predicts that errors that are phonologically similar to intended words are harder to detect than those that are phonologically dissimilar. To test this, we tried to elicit phonological errors under the same conditions as those that show other kinds of lexical selection errors. In five experiments, we presented participants with high cloze probability sentence fragments followed by a picture that was semantically related, a homophone of a semantically related word, or phonologically related to the (implicit) last word of the sentence. All experiments elicited semantic completions or homophones of semantic completions, but none elicited phonological completions. This finding is hard to reconcile with a monitoring bias account and is better explained with an interactive production system. Additionally, this finding constrains the amount of bottom-up information flow in interactive models.

Morphophonological influences on the comprehension of subject-verb agreement: an ERP study.

Event-related potentials were used to study whether factors known to influence subject-verb number agreement in production exert analogous effects on sentence comprehension. Participants read Dutch sentences containing subject-verb number agreement errors while their brainwaves were measured. The determiner of the singular head noun could be ambiguous or unambiguous in number and the modifier ("local") noun could be plural or singular. Both ambiguity and number match affect error rates in production. We expected evoked potentials in response to the verb to be modulated by number ambiguity; larger effects were expected when the sentences started with an unambiguous determiner. When the local noun was singular, we observed a more negative wave elicited by the incorrect verbs compared to the correct verbs in the 350-400 ms time-window. This effect was largest when the head noun phrase contained no number ambiguity. When the local noun was plural the waves were more positive for incorrect verbs than for correct verbs in the 600-650 ms time-window. Again this effect was largest when the head noun phrase contained no number ambiguity. Most importantly, the results show that agreement computation in comprehension is influenced by the same factors as in production. We further suggest that in the sentences with a singular local noun there is a shallow analysis of the sentence, but the sentences with a plural local noun require a deeper syntactic analysis.

Hemispheric asymmetry and pun comprehension: when cowboys have sore calves.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded as healthy participants listened to puns such as "During branding, cowboys have sore calves." To assess hemispheric differences in pun comprehension, visually presented probes that were either highly related (COW), moderately related (LEG), or unrelated, were presented in either the left or right visual half field (LVF/RVF). The sensitivity of each hemisphere to the different meanings evoked by the pun was assessed by ERP relatedness effects with presentation to the LVF and the RVF. In Experiment 1, the inter-stimulus interval between the pun and the onset of the visual probe was 0 ms; in Experiment 2, this value was 500 ms. In Experiment 1, both highly and moderately related probes elicited similar priming effects with RVF presentation. Relative to their unrelated counterparts, related probes elicited less negative ERPs in the N400 interval (300-600 ms post-onset), and more positive ERPs 600-900 ms post-onset, suggesting both meanings of the pun were equally active in the left hemisphere. LVF presentation yielded similar priming effects (less negative N400 and a larger positivity thereafter) for the highly related probes, but no effects for moderately related probes. In Experiment 2, similar N400 priming effects were observed for highly and moderately related probes presented to both visual fields. Compared to unrelated probes 600-900 ms post-onset, related probes elicited a centro-parietal positivity with RVF presentation, but a fronto-polar positivity with LVF presentation. Results suggest that initially, the different meanings evoked by a pun are both active in the left hemisphere, but only the most highly related meaning is active in the right hemisphere. By 500 ms, both meanings are active in both hemispheres.

Timed picture naming norms for 590 pictures in Dutch.

The present study presents timed norms for 590 pictures in Belgian Dutch. We determined name agreement and response latencies. Furthermore, we assessed which factors influenced the naming latencies of the pictures. It appeared that age-of-acquisition, the H-statistic (an index of name agreement), and the number of syllables of the dominant response were significant predictors of the naming latencies. These results are discussed in comparison with previous findings.