Articles tagged with Psycholinguistics
Paula Rubio-Fernández has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant to test and develop a new theory of common ground in conversation. Her project aims to understand how people build and manage shared understanding through real-time multimodal interaction.
Researchers found that self-focused language increased in the US and Germany over five decades, but remained stable in Japan and Hong Kong. This suggests that cultural contexts influence changes in societal centrism.
Researchers introduce fleeting memory into modern neural language models, showing improved learning efficiency and grammatical generalization when training data are limited. The findings suggest that memory constraints support language learning in contemporary neural networks.
Falk Huettig's new book delves into the effects of reading on memory, attention, language processing, and reasoning, as well as its impact on face recognition. The author argues that literacy continues to develop beyond decoding skills, training higher-level cognitive functions.
A study published in Scientific Reports found that programmers' brains exhibit brain activity similar to those caused by unexpected turns in conversation when encountering confusing code snippets. The research team used EEG and eye-tracking data to analyze the brain patterns, revealing a striking pattern known as late frontal positivity.
A recent study by Marta Coll-Florit found that while Spanish newspapers are openly discussing suicide, they still employ stigmatizing metaphors such as 'war' and 'epidemic', which can perpetuate shame and guilt around the topic. The researcher argues that these metaphors convey a focus on individual blame rather than collective respons...
A study by McGill University researchers suggests that the brain's sensory processing cortex, not motor control cortex, plays a crucial role in learning or regaining speech. Disrupting this area significantly impaired participants' ability to retain newly learned speech movements.
Researchers analyzed a large dataset of Japanese Instagram ads to identify linguistic patterns linked to click-through rates. The study found that word choices for supplement and cosmetic ads differed significantly, with risk-related words boosting CTR in supplement ads, while motion-related language increased CTR in cosmetic ads.
Philosopher Dr Kirill Chepurin wins the award for his monograph on Schelling's concept of 'bliss', while art historian Dr Elisabeth Ansel receives the award for her essay on J.M.W. Turner and Carl Gustav Carus' visual translation processes.
Cognitive neuroscientists are integrating genetics and AI to study language development and disorders. AI-based models can predict language development in children, while genetics research links rhythm disorders and dyslexia. The brain's wiring connecting language regions also reveals that language is a system, not a single 'thing'.
A team of researchers from The University of Osaka compared the way humans and machines think about words, finding some strong correlations but also significant discrepancies. Human ratings varied widely across words like prepositions and conjunctions, while LLMs tended to assign consistently low ratings.
New study finds psychosis delusions emerge from emotional experiences, bodily reactions, and linguistic fabric. Participants described intense emotional embodiment and disembodiment, with some experiencing positive feelings of awe and love.
The study analyzed eye movement data to predict processing effort and found that word and sentence length are effective predictors of text readability among English learners. This approach provides valuable insights for selecting reading materials and developing reading tests.
Researchers analyzed eye-tracking data to identify key factors influencing word processing during English reading. Word length was found to be the most critical factor in determining skipped words and total reading time, while word frequency and predictability played a significant role in initial processing and rereading.
Researchers found that humans across cultures and languages break their speech into Intonation Units, which follow a low-frequency rhythm of 1.6 seconds. This universal structure plays a critical role in helping listeners follow conversations and absorb information.
A new study by Waseda University researchers suggests that learners need to automatize word meanings in context to achieve fluent speech. By assessing automatized vocabulary knowledge (AVK) and declarative vocabulary knowledge (DVK), the team found AVK to be a stronger predictor of L2 speaking fluency.
Researchers used nonsense words to test ChatGPT's language processing capabilities, finding it excelled at discovering relationships and providing definitions for extinct words. However, the AI also generated incorrect or made-up answers in some cases, highlighting its limitations.
Researchers from East China Normal University developed an AI-driven system to analyze classroom videos, revealing teacher-centered instruction prevails in primary and secondary schools. The study also found that older students engage less in critical discussions and more in structured questions.
A study from Kyushu University finds that children focus on literal meaning when interpreting phrases like 'Did you see that?', while adults use a more integrated approach to resolve ambiguity. The findings have implications for dialogue robot development and support systems for individuals with communication difficulties.
Researchers found that textisms like adding periods after each word or putting words in individual bubbles can add emotional intensity to messages. The study suggests that readers interpret these textisms as conveying emotion, assuming they were included deliberately.
A new study by Cornell researchers discovered that caregivers simplify their speech in response to babies' babbling, creating a feedback loop that drives learning. This effect is observed across multiple languages and cultures, suggesting that babies actively shape the conditions for language development.
Research from the University of Miami found that bilingualism has a positive impact on children's executive function skills, which are crucial for daily tasks and social interactions. Multilingual children also exhibit improved perspective-taking abilities, indicating enhanced cognitive development.
A study of over 57,000 people from 65 countries found that the Satisfaction With Life Scale generally holds up well when applied to diverse groups. The scale identified common themes in life satisfaction, including financial security and relationships, across nations and age groups.
Researchers found that babies' first vocalizations and attempts at forming words coincide with fluctuations in their heart rate. This discovery may indicate that successful speech development depends on predictable ranges of autonomic activity during infancy.
A new study by Lancaster University reveals that language in job ads can unintentionally reinforce or disrupt labour force gender/racial composition. Workforces with more women tend to use family-friendly policies in ads, while racial minority workers' ads lack impact, the research shows.
A Concordia study of 300 Montreal households found that mothers have up to twice the impact on language exposure compared to fathers. Mothers typically transmit heritage languages, even if both parents are heritage-language speakers, due to cultural factors and spending more time at home.
A study published in Psychological Science found that 2-year-olds rely on grammatical information to understand the meaning of new words. The researchers used focus signals in sentences to manipulate children's responses, showing that young kids can absorb grammatical cues and leverage them to learn new words.
Researchers found that a higher proportion of shape-based nouns in a child's vocabulary shortly after cochlear implantation was associated with better language development for the next three years. This association was stronger in children who had received cochlear implants compared to those with normal hearing.
New Cornell University-led research finds that combining two simple tools can improve people's ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, suggesting a combined approach could be more effective in combating election misinformation.
A new study found that foreign accents can mitigate judgment for grammatical errors, except in cases where listeners are highly conscientious. The research suggests that English speakers are generally tolerant of grammatical errors when the speaker has a foreign accent.
A new Concordia study reveals that bilingualism is associated with larger and healthier hippocampi in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The research found no evidence of hippocampal atrophy in bilinguals across the continuum of Alzheimer’s development.
Researchers found that adults prioritize cognitive cues over vocal signals when evaluating a child's intelligence or negative emotions, while vocal cues dominate for assessing happiness or helplessness. This study provides insights into the complex dynamics of caregiver-child interactions and their evolutionary roots.
Demonstratives like 'this' and 'that' use across languages to direct listener's attention, linking language to social cognition. The study found that speakers of different languages use demonstratives in ways that reflect their shared human capacity for joint attention.
Researchers have found that speakers of Makhuwa, a Bantu language, process focused information in the same way as speakers of other languages. The study used EEG to measure brain activity when participants heard sentences with focused or non-focused words. The results show that focused information generated a more negative N400 respons...
A new study reveals that parents use less redundant language with older children, highlighting the impact of perceived language proficiency on communication. The researchers employed an innovative method by quantifying redundancy in infant-directed speech using entropy rate.
Research by Lancaster University found that people in higher social grades, including corporate world and education sectors, are adopting each other's speech patterns to be more inclusive. This 'resonance' has increased over the past 20 years, particularly among those with high social status.
Researchers have published an extensive eye-tracking dataset of over 410,000 words for Japanese students learning English. The Tsukuba Eye-tracking Corpus (TECO) provides valuable data for studying reading comprehension and second language acquisition.
A survey of nearly 340,000 texts spanning 79 years shows that generic terms in mental health have shifted towards "mental illness," with "psychiatric" and "mental health" becoming more common. The study suggests further research is needed to understand how language affects people experiencing mental ill health.
A study involving 75 researchers from 55 languages found consistent patterns in music and language features, such as pitch, timbre, and rhythm. The research suggests that songs may have evolved to facilitate social bonding and synchronisation, with slow, regular melodies making it easier for large groups to sing together.
Researchers found that individuals without an inner voice performed poorly in remembering words in sequence and identifying rhyming words. However, they did not exhibit significant differences in switching between tasks or distinguishing similar figures.
A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General found that people's use of pronouns reflects not only their language but also their ideologies. Researchers asked participants from English and Turkish-speaking backgrounds to evaluate different types of pronouns, revealing a connection between societal attitudes and ...
Researchers analyzed language use around ageing to infer wellbeing, discovering 'language markers' that provide insight into healthy aging narratives. The study's findings suggest a new approach to understanding wellbeing in older adults.
The study reveals that experienced programmers exhibit brain responses similar to those of fluent readers processing sentences, indicating a strong resemblance between learning computer and natural languages. The research suggests that understanding how people learn to code can be informed by expertise in second-language learning.
A new study by UNC-Chapel Hill researcher Jennifer E. Arnold examines how people use 'they/them' pronouns in a spoken storytelling context. The findings show that college-aged speakers are able to adopt and use nonbinary 'they' with ease, suggesting a natural process of language change.
Research from the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences found that increased neural activity in response to social interaction at 5 months predicted enhanced language development at later ages. The study used magnetoencephalography to monitor infant brain activity during social and nonsocial interactions wi...
Researchers developed machine learning models that can recognize emotions in voice recordings as short as 1.5 seconds with high accuracy comparable to humans. The study used three ML models and achieved an accuracy of over 90%, with potential applications in therapy, interpersonal communication technology and more.
A study using fMRI found that speaking and listening rely on the same brain regions, but with crucial differences in activity levels across the language network. Regions associated with social processing were more involved when speaking.
A neuroimaging study found that brain activity increases early on in sentences while speaking and at the end of phrases during listening. This suggests that the brain builds sentence structure incrementally while speaking, but integrates information more slowly when listening.
Researchers found that a language's past color vocabulary influences its ability to evolve, with constraints on vocabulary growth and changes in meaning. The study used the World Color Survey dataset to explore how new terms are introduced and their meanings change as vocabulary size increases.
Researchers found that individuals with mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) struggle with ambiguous sentences, indicating a key deficit in processing complex language. This deficit is independent of memory loss and may serve as an additional 'cognitive biomarker' for early detection.
A study published in Frontiers in Psychology finds that people in positions of power are three times less likely to use sensitive language in work-related emails than their junior colleagues. This suggests that leaders are cautious with their words due to greater scrutiny and potential consequences.
A study by Florida Atlantic University finds that reminiscing with children elicits high-quality speech from parents, similar to book sharing. The activity was found to increase lexical richness and grammatical complexity in parent speech, benefiting children's language growth.
A study found that people from ethnic minorities show clearer signs of depression and lower adaptability on average. The researchers also discovered correlations between area poverty levels and the proportion of ethnic minorities exhibiting these traits.
A study by Florida Atlantic University found that immigrant bilingual Latina mothers retain cultural practices in play conversations with their children, particularly when speaking in their heritage language. The mothers' behavior changes when switching languages, extending to language use with young children.
A new study finds that Americans from the South mimic Southern speech patterns when actually listening to a Southerner, but only shift their speech when told they're hearing a Southerner. Non-Southerners, however, are influenced by stereotypes and only shift their speech when told so.
A new study published in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence found that training in Interlingual Respeaking, a new practice combining human collaboration with speech recognition software, can improve language professionals' cognitive abilities. The research, conducted by the University of Surrey, showed significant enhancements in wor...
Researchers at Lancaster University find that the 'r' sound is becoming weaker in England, with most young speakers softening it to an elongation of the vowel. This decline is predicted to continue, potentially erasing traditional dialects and linguistic homogenization.
A global study of 1,001 children across 12 countries found that adult talk is the key predictor of language development in infants and toddlers. No effects were found related to socioeconomics or multilingualism.
A Europe-wide project aims to help young people facing the judicial system understand their trial and respond accordingly. The Y-JustLang project involves researchers, judges, and professionals to address the challenges faced by individuals with severe language difficulties.
A research team led by a University of Arizona faculty member found that violating gender stereotypes in apologies leads to more effective communication. Women delivering masculine-style apologies were seen as displaying higher levels of assertiveness and enhancing their perceived competence.