CogniciónecondutaProcesos Cognitivos e Condutahttp://hdl.handle.net/10347/155542024-03-29T09:39:29Z2024-03-29T09:39:29ZLearning words while listening to syllables: electrophysiological correlates of statistical learning in children and adultsSoares, Ana PaulaGutiérrez Domínguez, Francisco JavierLages, AlexandrinaVasconcelos, MargaridaJiménez García, Luis Miguelhttp://hdl.handle.net/10347/300022023-01-27T03:02:41Z2022-01-01T00:00:00ZLearning words while listening to syllables: electrophysiological correlates of statistical learning in children and adults
Soares, Ana Paula; Gutiérrez Domínguez, Francisco Javier; Lages, Alexandrina; Vasconcelos, Margarida; Jiménez García, Luis Miguel
From an early age, exposure to a spoken language has allowed us to implicitly capture
the structure underlying the succession of speech sounds in that language and to
segment it into meaningful units (words). Statistical learning (SL), the ability to pick
up patterns in the sensory environment without intention or reinforcement, is thus
assumed to play a central role in the acquisition of the rule-governed aspects of
language, including the discovery of word boundaries in the continuous acoustic stream.
Although extensive evidence has been gathered from artificial languages experiments
showing that children and adults are able to track the regularities embedded in the
auditory input, as the probability of one syllable to follow another syllable in the speech
stream, the developmental trajectory of this ability remains controversial. In this work,
we have collected Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) while 5-year-old children and young
adults (university students) were exposed to a speech stream made of the repetition
of eight three-syllable nonsense words presenting different levels of predictability (high
vs. low) to mimic closely what occurs in natural languages and to get new insights into
the changes that the mechanisms underlying auditory statistical learning (aSL) might
undergo through the development. The participants performed the aSL task first under
implicit and, subsequently, under explicit conditions to further analyze if children take
advantage of previous knowledge of the to-be-learned regularities to enhance SL, as
observed with the adult participants. These findings would also contribute to extend
our knowledge of the mechanisms available to assist SL at each developmental stage.
Although behavioral signs of learning, even under explicit conditions, were only observed
for the adult participants, ERP data showed evidence of online segmentation in the
brain in both groups, as indexed by modulations in the N100 and N400 components.
A detailed analysis of the neural data suggests, however, that adults and children rely
on different mechanisms to assist the extraction of word-like units from the continuous
speech stream, hence supporting the view that SL with auditory linguistic materials
changes through development
2022-01-01T00:00:00ZWhat a transparent Romance language with a Germanic gender-determiner mapping tells us about gender retrieval: Insights from European PortugueseSá Leite Dias, Ana RitaGomes Tomaz, ÂngelaHernández-Cabrera, Juan A.Fraga, IsabelAcuña Fariña, CarlosCOMESAÑA, MONTSERRAThttp://hdl.handle.net/10347/300012023-01-27T03:02:40Z2022-01-01T00:00:00ZWhat a transparent Romance language with a Germanic gender-determiner mapping tells us about gender retrieval: Insights from European Portuguese
Sá Leite Dias, Ana Rita; Gomes Tomaz, Ângela; Hernández-Cabrera, Juan A.; Fraga, Isabel; Acuña Fariña, Carlos; COMESAÑA, MONTSERRAT
The study of the representation and processing of grammatical gender during language production has
encountered mixed results regarding which conditions must be met to observe gender effects and whether these
reflect the selection of gender values or competition between elements of agreement. The answer seems to depend
on the number of determiners associated with each gender and on the language being explored. The present study
aims to assess this issue through three picture-word interference tasks in European Portuguese. This is a
transparent Romance language featuring a one-to-one gender-determiner mapping system similar to opaque
Germanic languages. Conditions of gender in/congruency between targets and distractors were considered, along
with gender transparency and agreement. We observed a gender congruency effect restricted to noun phrases.
Importantly, the effect was modulated by transparency, which seems relevant regardless of agreement. To explain
the results, we adapted the Dual-Route Model of language comprehension to production
2022-01-01T00:00:00ZSo far but yet so near: examining the buffering effect of perceived social support on the psychological impact of Spanish lockdownDopico Casal, CarlosMontes Piñeiro, CarlosFraga Carou, IsabelViéitez Portas, LucíaPadrón, IsabelRomero Triñanes, Estrellahttp://hdl.handle.net/10347/294032022-11-11T03:02:41Z2022-01-01T00:00:00ZSo far but yet so near: examining the buffering effect of perceived social support on the psychological impact of Spanish lockdown
Dopico Casal, Carlos; Montes Piñeiro, Carlos; Fraga Carou, Isabel; Viéitez Portas, Lucía; Padrón, Isabel; Romero Triñanes, Estrella
The main objective of this study was to examine the moderating or buffering effect of social support (SS) perceived by university students on the psychological impact of lockdown on mental health. Specifically, a total of 826 participants (622 women) completed an online survey that included standardized measures of anxiety (Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9), and irritability (Brief Irritability Test), as well as measures of stressors, perceived SS, and self-perceived change in mental health. The results of hierarchical regression analyses suggest that SS contributes toward attenuating the negative impact of academic stressors, general overload, and interpersonal conflict on the indicators of psychological well-being; however, moderation analysis only confirms the buffering effect for symptoms of anxiety. In conclusion, it is suggested that SS networks need to be strengthened as a basic means of protecting health and well-being during unexpected disasters
2022-01-01T00:00:00ZThe mechanisms underlying grammatical gender selection in language production: a meta-analysis of the gender congruency effectSá-Leite Dias, Ana RitaLuna, KarlosGomes Tomaz, ÂngelaFraga Carou, IsabelComesaña, Montserrathttp://hdl.handle.net/10347/276292023-07-10T06:11:38Z2022-01-01T00:00:00ZThe mechanisms underlying grammatical gender selection in language production: a meta-analysis of the gender congruency effect
Sá-Leite Dias, Ana Rita; Luna, Karlos; Gomes Tomaz, Ângela; Fraga Carou, Isabel; Comesaña, Montserrat
Grammatical gender retrieval during language production has been largely addressed through the picture-word interference (PWI) paradigm, with the aim of capturing the so-called gender congruency effect (GCE). In the PWI paradigm, participants name target pictures while ignoring superimposed written distractor nouns. The GCE shows faster responses when target and distractor nouns share the same gender than when gender differs. Yet, the locus of this effect is not clear: it might be either due to the selection of a determiner or due to the selection of a gender node at the lemma level, which may be primed or delayed by competition. Importantly, many of those who argue that the GCE is not a genuine effect of gender conclude that gender is a feature that is retrieved automatically. Such a claim is controversial since the PWI paradigm has been seen as too complex and perhaps not sensitive enough to capture small effects. Besides, for Romance languages, mixed results draw a complex picture with effects occurring mainly in the opposite direction, i.e., a gender incongruency effect (GIE). In the present study, we conducted a meta-analysis of the 18 studies that have addressed this issue. The results confirm the existence of the GCE as a determiner effect in Germanic/Slavic languages, while little support is found for the GIE in Romance languages. Nevertheless, we argue that the absence of gender effects in Germanic and Slavic languages within the PWI paradigm cannot be taken as evidence of an absence of priming/competition during gender selection and thus as evidence of an automatic selection of gender. Parametric replication of previous studies, especially those featuring bound morphemes, together with the use of other measuring techniques such as event related potentials are suggested as a way forward
2022-01-01T00:00:00Z