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Syntactic priming may be a key mechanism underlying children’s learning of novel words. Havron et al. (2019) exposed French-speaking children (ages 3 to 4) to a speaker biased by the use of either familiar verbs or nouns presented in the same syntactic context. This influenced participants’ interpretations of ambiguous novel words presented in the same syntactic frame. In Experiment 1, we successfully replicated Havron et al. with 77 French-speaking adults, using a web-based eye-tracking paradigm. Experiment 2 adapted this paradigm to English: Repeated exposure to a syntactic structure induced 102 English-speaking adults to update their expectations about the meanings of novel words. Our results indicate participants adapted to the specific linguistic structure used, not just the speaker’s tendency to mention actions or objects. These findings support the role of rapid adaptation during word learning. Experiments in progress investigate whether the English paradigm yields successful learning in 3- to 5-year-old children.

CogSci 2021

Syntactic adaptation and word learning in French and English

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**Dear Colleagues,**

Welcome to the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society! 

This year’s conference brings together the latest research from all Cognitive Science and also highlights this year’s theme **Comparative Cognition: Animal Minds.** 

The program features four plenary speakers: Friederike Range (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna), Onur Güntürkün (Ruhr University Bochum), Julia Fischer (University of Göttingen), and Erich Jarvis (The Rockefeller University). The keynotes and invited symposia showcase the broad spectrum of ideas that encompass the conference theme of comparative cognition. 

Further, the program includes the Rumelhart Prize keynote presentation by Susan Goldin-Meadow (University of Chicago), and symposia to celebrate the winner of the Elman Prize: Wei Ji Ma (New York University), the Heineken Award winner Robert Zatorre (McGill University), and the Robert J. Glushko Dissertation Prizes session.

The program committee for CogSci 2021 received 1,025 submissions, including 710 full papers, 275 member abstracts, 8 publication-based talks, as well as 15 proposals for symposia, and 17 for workshops and tutorials. After a rigorous review process, the committee selected 152 papers for oral presentation and inclusion in the conference proceedings (14.8%), 332 papers for poster presentation and inclusion in the proceedings (32.4%), and 175 papers for poster presentation with inclusion of abstracts in the proceedings (17.1%) We also selected 275 submitted member abstracts. In addition, we accepted 6 publication-based talks, 12 symposia, and 9 workshops and tutorials to make for an exciting and inclusive program.

We hope that you enjoy the conference this year!<br><br>

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**Learn more about the Vienna Cognitive Science Hub at the University of Vienna, hosts of CogSci 2021**

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The Cognitive Science Society brings together researchers from around the world who hold a common goal: understanding the nature of the human mind. The mission of the Society is to promote Cognitive Science as a discipline, and to foster scientific interchange among researchers in various areas of study, including Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Anthropology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Education. The Society is a non-profit professional organization and its activities include sponsoring an annual conference and publishing the journals Cognitive Science and TopiCS.

poster

Can learning a second language (L2) redirect what we perceive to be similar events? This study investigated how Cantonese- English bilinguals categorized and processed spontaneous motion when the access to language ranged from maximal to minimal. In Experiment 1, participants verbalized the target events in either Cantonese or English right before making their similarity judgements. Results suggested that bilinguals patterned with English monolinguals in both lexicalization and conceptualization irrespective of the language of operation. In Experiment 2, participants experienced verbal interference while making their decisions. Results showed that bilinguals followed an English-like way in event conceptualization as indicated by their processing efficiency of manner and path. However, no cross-linguistic differences were found in speakers’ categorical preferences. The overall findings suggest that subtle typological differences between the L1 and L2 can restructure bilinguals’ cognitive behaviour. And the magnitude of such impact is modulated by different degrees of language involvement.

Two languages, one mind: the effects of language learning on motion event processing in early Cantonese-English bilinguals

According to linguistic relativity, the structure of a language influences its speaker’s cognition. To examine the generalization to non-linguistic tasks, we compared Korean and German native speakers. In Korean, a grammatical distinction forces to discriminate between tight and loose spatial relations, while in German, this falls into one single semantic category. In visual priming and masking experiments, we found 1) direct and 2) indirect evidence for linguistic relativity. 1) Congruence effects in the discrimination of tight/loose spatial relations only for Korean speakers and 2) a reduced efficiency of metacontrast masking (which relies on spatial fit between stimulus and mask) for Korean speakers, as attention was automatically captured by varying distances, according to their grammar. With object-substitution masks (where tightness of fit does not play a role), Korean speakers no longer outperformed German speakers. In our study, the highly practiced characteristics of one’s mother tongue affected attention and, hence, perception.

Revising the Scope of Linguistic Relativity: Language Influences Perception in Non-linguistic Tasks

Studies of the speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) have been influential in arguing for the direct-access model of retrieval in sentence processing. The direct-access model assumes that long-distance dependencies rely on a content-addressable search for the correct representation in memory. Here, we address two important weaknesses in the statistical methods standardly used for analysing SAT data. First, these methods are based on non-hierarchical modelling. We show how a hierarchical model can be fit to SAT data, and we test parameter recovery in this more conservative model. The parameters most relevant to the direct-access account cannot be accurately estimated, and we attribute this to the standard SAT model being overparameterised for the limited data available to fit it. Second, the power properties of SAT studies are unknown. We conduct a power analysis and show that inferences from null results to the null hypothesis, though commonplace in the SAT literature, may be unwarranted.

Statistical properties of the speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) paradigm in sentence processing

Despite wide variation among natural languages, there are linguistic properties thought to be universal to all or almost all natural languages. Here, we consider universals at the semantic level, in the domain of quantifiers, which are given by the properties of monotonicity, quantity, and conservativity. We investigate whether these universals might be explained by differences in complexity. We generate a large collection of quantifiers, based on a simple yet expressive grammar, and compute both their complexities and whether they adhere to these universal properties. We find that quantifiers satisfying semantic universals are less complex: they have a shorter minimal description length.

Quantifiers satisfying semantic universals are simpler

Children struggle to derive scalar implicatures. Initially this was thought to relate to a lack of cognitive resources required for the computation. More recently however, there has been a shift towards the alternatives (what a speaker could have said but did not). The argument is that children struggle to make the scalar implicature associated with some because they are unaware of its relationship with the stronger alternative all. We present a priming study that investigates this. We show that children’s implicatures can be primed equally by alternatives in quantifier and ad hoc expressions. This suggests that children are aware of the scalar relationship between some and all, even if they choose not to derive the implicature.

Priming implicatures in young children

In two self-paced reading experiments, we investigated the integration of knowledge about cultural figures during language processing. Experiment 1 investigated how contextually-defined lifetime information (dead/alive) was integrated with temporal verb morphology (English Present Perfect and Past Simple). Experiment 2 investigated how long-term knowledge about a cultural figure, prompted by their picture, is integrated with two types of linguistic input in German: temporal phrases containing a year, and biographical information (e.g., Joaquin Phoenix: "In the year 2013 / *1960, I starred in the film ‘Her’ / *‘Psycho’"). Experiment 1 revealed longer reading times and higher rejection rates when life status mismatched tense (i.e., dead – Present Perfect, alive – Past Simple). In Experiment 2, shorter reading times and higher accuracy rates emerged in conditions containing lifetime-year mismatches. No effects were found for biographical information violations. Together, the two experiments provide cross-linguistic evidence that knowledge of a referent’s lifetime is integrated during language processing.

Effects of lifetime knowledge on language processing in German and English

Understanding language requires comprehenders to understand not only what speakers say, but what speakers might imply. Scalar items (e.g. some, numerals) often invite comprehenders to compute scalar implicatures, pragmatically strengthening the semantic meaning of scalar items by negating their stronger alternatives. Recent priming evidence suggests that scalar implicatures may share underlying mechanisms, priming both within and between implicature types. We report two experiments designed to extend these finding to or, which has an inclusive meaning that can be strengthened to an exclusive meaning, potentially via scalar implicature. Experiment 1 investigated or alongside some and numerals, holding the number of visual symbols constant. Experiment 2 reduced the visual complexity of Experiment 1. Both experiments found robust within-category priming, but failed to fully replicate or extend between-category priming effects. We discuss implications of these results with respect to visual manipulations and the potential fragility of priming across different categories of scalar implicature.

Do Scalar Implicatures Prime? The Case of Exclusive ‘or’

The current paper brings experimental evidence that Romanian 4-and 5-year-olds are able to understand recursive prepositional modifiers such as "papagalul de lȃngǎ hamsterul de lȃngǎ iepuraş", ‘the parrot next to the hamster next to the bunny’. 23 children engaged in a picture matching task (PMT) where they heard sentences containing either recursive structures or coordinative structures, and they had to choose between a picture corresponding to a recursive interpretation and a picture corresponding to a coordinative interpretation. Interestingly, children provided recursive interpretations to recursive structures to a quite high degree, though their behavior was not fully adult-like. We argue that this can be accounted for through children’s sensitivity to specific recursion cues that are present in Romanian, as well as to the contrast between recursion and coordination, which is activated through the experimental set-up.

"The Parrot next to the Hamster (and) next to the Bunny" Sheds Light on Recursion in Child Romanian

Does playing Chess improve reading, writing, speaking, and listening skill, the components of Linguistic Intelligence? The ability to manipulate syntax, phonetics, pragmatics, and semantics of the language is defined as Linguistic Intelligence. The experimental group underwent Chess training once a week, through the year (around 25 to 30 sessions), as part of co-curricular school activity. ANCOVA showed significant gains in Verbal Reasoning (an integral part of Linguistic Intelligence) for the experimental group than the control group who were involved in other extra-curricular activities. The study used pretest–posttest with control group design with WISC IV India and Binet Kamat Test of Intelligence for the assessment. 70 children in the experimental group and 81 children in the control group were randomly selected from four schools of both genders in the age group of 5 -16. Results indicate enhanced Linguistic Intelligence, which could also lead to improved communication, critical and analytical skills.

AUGMENTING LINGUISTIC INTELLIGENCE THROUGH CHESS TRAINING - AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Linguistic complexity – manifested in terms of hierarchical recursive structures generated by grammar – is often discussed from the perspective of cross-linguistic comparison (cf. Everett, 2005; Nevins, Pesetsky, & Rodrigues, 2009 on Pirahã). In this paper, we focus instead on the variation in complexity within a single language, English, and on the lower bound of complexity, specifically (cf. Futrell et al., 2016). We report results of two studies, a corpus study (Study 1) and a production experiment (Study 2), that investigate syntactic complexity of expressions that arise in the context of human-computer interaction and compare them to the standard language. The results of both studies show that the expressions generated in the context of human-computer interaction exhibit lesser structural complexity and often violate the norm of the language (cf. margaret mead culture famous research). Our results suggest that such expressions are generated by a qualitatively different type of formal grammar, Linear Grammar (Jackendoff & Wittenberg, 2017), rather than by recursive grammar (Roeper, 1999).

Syntactic adaptation and word learning in French and English

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Next from CogSci 2021

Two languages, one mind: the effects of language learning on motion event processing in early Cantonese-English bilinguals

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