Previous research has found a linear relation between distance and scanning times for spatial configurations when the spatial configurations were learned perceptually and when they were constructed from well-structured verbal descriptions. The current research replicated the time-distance relation when the images were constructed from repetitions of well-structured descriptions but not when the...

Listeners can use speakers’ gaze to anticipate upcoming referents. We examined whether this listener benefit is affected by different comprehension subtasks. A video-taped speaker referred to depicted characters, using either a subject-verb-object or a non-canonical object-verb-subject German sentence. She shifted gaze once from the pre-verbal to the post-verbal referent, a behavior that could ...

A major part of learning a language is learning to map spoken words onto objects in the environment. An open question is what are the consequences of this learning for cognition and perception? Here, we present a series of experiments that examine effects of verbal labels on the activation of conceptual information as measured through picture verification tasks. We find that verbal cues, such a...

The sequencing of smooth and rhythmically "sculptured" words and phrases at a speaker's habitual speech rate (4 Hz to 6 Hz) critically depends on the cerebellum. Besides overt performance, the cerebellum also seems to organize the syllabic structure of "auditory verbal imagery" or "internal speech"--that is, a prearticulatory but otherwise fully elaborated and temporally organized representatio...

This paper looks into the question to what extent intonative structure determines word order variation in a particular type of syntactic structures in Dutch. Certain subordinate clauses in this language may contain verbal groups consisting of an auxiliary (aux) and a participle (part) that appear in sentence-final position. The order of these verbal elements is fundamentally free so that both a...

Sentential negation in spoken Brazilian Portuguese (BP) has three possible structures: containing a negative particle only preverbally (NEG1), pre and post verbally (NEG2) or only post-verbally (NEG3). The choice of structure depends on sociolinguistic and pragmatic factors. This study investigates whether these structures also differ in prosodic patterns. NEG3 is of particular interest: since ...

Music is sometimes compared to language as a system of communication, however this comparison is usually at a generic formal, cultural or social level. This paper explores this analogy at the detailed level of interaction: to what extent can musical contributions act as conversational turns? We explore this question through an ethnographic study of music lessons. We describe a new transcription...

Patients with schizophrenia show deficits across a broad spectrum of neurocognitive domains. In particular, deficits in verbal fluency are common. Verbal fluency tests are neuropsychological tests that assess frontal lobe function or executive function but also assess divergent thinking. However, few studies have considered the impairment of verbal fluency from the viewpoint of divergent thinki...

Functional imaging studies of single word production have consistently reported activation of the lateral prefrontal and cingulate cortex. Its contribution has been shown to be sensitive to task demands, which can be manipulated by the degree of response specification. Compared with classical verbal fluency, free word association relies less on response restrictions but to a greater extent on a...