The pseudoword effect is the finding that pseudowords (i.e., rare words or pronounceable nonwords) give rise to more hits and false alarms than words. Using the retrieving effectively from memory (REM) model of recognition memory, we tested a familiarity-based account of the pseudoword effect: Specifically, the pseudoword effect arises because…

It has been hypothesized that cerebral lateralization of function enhances cognitive performance. Evidence was found in birds and fish. However, recent research in humans did not support this hypothesis. We aimed to replicate and extend these findings for single- and dual-task performance in an ecologically relevant task. We combined a word…

The processes of infant word segmentation and infant word learning have largely been studied separately. However, the ease with which potential word forms are segmented from fluent speech seems likely to influence subsequent mappings between words and their referents. To explore this process, we tested the link between the statistical coherence of…

Bilinguals are slower when naming a picture in their second language than when naming it in their first language. Although the phenomenon has been frequently replicated, it is not known what causes the delay in the second language. In this article we discuss at what processing stages a delay might arise according to current models of bilingual…

Children between the ages of 5 and 12 years were tested with dichotic listening tests utilizing single syllable words and random presentations of digits. They produced a higher prevalence of left ear dominance than expected, especially among right-handed children when tested with words. Whether more children demonstrate the LEA because of right…

The objective of this article is to illustrate that text mining and qualitative research are epistemologically compatible. First, like many qualitative research approaches, such as grounded theory, text mining encourages open-mindedness and discourages preconceptions. Contrary to the popular belief that text mining is a linear and fully automated…

Research on written language comprehension has generally assumed that the phonological properties of a word have little effect on sentence comprehension beyond the processes of word recognition. Two experiments investigated this assumption. Participants silently read relative clauses in which two pairs of words either did or did not have a high…

Semantic errors in aphasia (e.g., naming a horse as "dog") frequently arise from faulty mapping of concepts onto lexical items. A recent study by our group used voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) methods with 64 patients with chronic aphasia to identify voxels that carry an association with semantic errors. The strongest associations were…

Persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI) often show impaired linguistic and/or narrative abilities. The present study aimed to document the features of narrative discourse impairment in a group of adults with TBI. 14 severe TBI non-aphasic speakers (GCS less than 8) in the phase of neurological stability and 14 neurologically intact participants…

This study examined relationships between prelinguistic variables from the MacArthur-Bates CDI and the development of language comprehension and production in children with autism. Forty-four children were assessed at baseline and 6, 12, 24, 33 and 53 months later. Growth Curve Modeling was used to examine the extent to which three composite CDI…

We investigate how Tamil- and Dutch-speaking adults and four- to five-year-old children use caused posture verbs ("lay/stand a bottle on a table") to label placement events in which objects are oriented vertically or horizontally. Tamil caused posture verbs consist of morphemes that individually label the causal and result subevents ("nikka…

A primary focus within neuroimaging research on language comprehension is on the distribution of semantic knowledge in the brain. Studies have shown that the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LPMT), a region just anterior to area MT/V5, is important for the processing of complex action knowledge. It has also been found that motion verbs cause…

Bilinguals appear to have shared syntactic representations for similar constructions between languages but retain distinct representations for noncognate translation-equivalents (Schoonbaert, Hartsuiker, & Pickering, 2007). We inquire whether bilinguals have more integrated representations of cognate translation-equivalents. To investigate…

It is widely recognized that the processor has a key role to play in creating and strengthening the mapping between form and meaning that is integral to language use. Adopting an emergentist approach to heritage language acquisition, the current study considers the extent to which the operation of the processor can contribute to an account of what…

We investigated whether and when information conveyed by spoken language impacts on the processing of visually presented objects. In contrast to traditional views, grounded-cognition posits direct links between language comprehension and perceptual processing. We used a magnetoencephalographic cross-modal priming paradigm to disentangle these…