Predicting (variability of) context effects in language comprehension Abstract Predicting variability in context effects is a timely enterprise considering that psycho- and neurolinguistic research has assessed how language processing depends on the perceived context, the body, and long-term linguistic knowledge of the language user. The current evidence suggests that some context effects may be systematically more robust than others and that language user characteristics are an influential modulator of context-sensitive comprehension. Reviewing psycholinguistic evidence, I argue for constrained contextual variability. Variability in context effects is predicted by characteristics of the language user and world-language relations. But extant findings also suggest generalizability beyond such variation, thus imposing constraint on theoretical prediction of context effects via relative (not absolute) processing preferences.

Proficiency modulates between- but not within-language structural priming Abstract The oldest of the Celtic language family, Irish differs considerably from English, notably with respect to word order and case marking. In spite of differences in surface constituent structure, less restricted accounts of bilingual shared syntax predict that processing datives and passives in Irish should prime the production of their English equivalents. Furthermore, this cross-linguistic influence should be sensitive to L2 proficiency, if shared structural representations are assumed to develop over time. In Experiment 1, we investigated cross-linguistic structural priming from Irish to English in 47 bilingual adolescents who are educated through Irish. Testing took place in a classroom setting, using written primes and written sentence generation. We found that priming for prepositional-object (PO) datives was predicted by self-rated Irish (L2) proficiency, in line with previous studies. In Experiment 2, we presented translations of the materials to an English-educated control group (n = 54). We found a within-language priming effect for PO datives, which was not modulated by English (L1) proficiency. Our findings are compatible with current theories of bilingual language processing and L2 syntactic acquisition.

Semantic processing of adjectives and nouns in American Sign Language: effects of reference ambiguity and word order across development Abstract When processing spoken language sentences, listeners continuously make and revise predictions about the upcoming linguistic signal. In contrast, during comprehension of American Sign Language (ASL), signers must simultaneously attend to the unfolding linguistic signal and the surrounding scene via the visual modality. This may affect how signers activate potential lexical candidates and allocate visual attention as a sentence unfolds. To determine how signers resolve referential ambiguity during real-time comprehension of ASL adjectives and nouns, we presented deaf adults (n = 18, 19–61 years) and deaf children (n = 20, 4–8 years) with videos of ASL sentences in a visual world paradigm. Sentences had either an adjective-noun (e.g., “SEE YELLOW WHAT? FLOWER”) or a noun-adjective (e.g., “SEE FLOWER WHICH? YELLOW”) structure. The degree of ambiguity in the visual scene was manipulated at the adjective and noun levels (e.g., including one or more yellow items and one or more flowers in the visual array). We investigated effects of ambiguity and word order on target looking at early and late points in the sentence. Analysis revealed that adults and children made anticipatory looks to a target when it could be identified early in the sentence. Further, signers looked more to potential lexical candidates than to unrelated competitors in the early window, and more to matched than unrelated competitors in the late window. Children’s gaze patterns largely aligned with those of adults, although they made fewer anticipatory fixations to the target in the early window and were more susceptible to competitors in the late window. Together, these findings suggest that signers allocate referential attention strategically based on the amount and type of ambiguity at different points in the sentence when processing adjectives and nouns in ASL.

Suppression, reappraisal, and acceptance of emotions: a comparison between Turkish immigrant and German adolescents Abstract Culture-specific norms appear to have an influence on emotion regulation processes. Comparative cultural studies of adults have demonstrated a higher tendency to suppress, a lower tendency to accept, and no difference in the reappraisal of, emotions in collectivist—compared with individualist-oriented samples. Furthermore, suppression of emotions has been shown to have less negative consequences for individuals with a collectivist rather than individualist cultural background. The current study investigated differences in habitual suppression, reappraisal, and acceptance of emotions between immigrant adolescents of Turkish origin and German adolescents. Compared with German adolescents, Turkish immigrant adolescents reported a higher tendency to suppress, and a lower tendency to accept, emotions. There was a large, positive correlation between suppression and reappraisal in the Turkish group but no such correlation in the German group. Conversely, expressive suppression correlated with depressive symptoms in the German group only, indicating that suppression might be less harmful for immigrants from a collectivist-oriented culture particularly when it is used more flexibly in combination with reappraisal.

Effort reduction in articulation in sign languages and dance Abstract Sign languages exhibit the drive for ease of articulation found in spoken languages, particularly in fast and casual conversation, where the methods that reduce effort are shown here to be limited by the need to maintain recognizability. Participatory dance, which uses the same articulators as sign languages plus additional ones, also demonstrates methods of reducing biomechanical effort, analogous to those seen in sign languages, and, again, limited by the need to maintain recognizability of the dance figures/phrases. However, when we look at performance language (here, sign poetry) and performance dance, we find a contrast: sign language poetry uses reduced and enhanced forms, while performance dance does not use reduced forms but often uses enhanced forms. We attribute this contrast to the different functions of the different types of language and dance, with attention to the notion of intention in performance dance.

Visual recycling and intertextuality: a neurocognitive perspective Abstract The phenomenon this article is studying is so common and important in the everyday world that its name should be known: it is visual/multimodal recycling. It occurs when editorial artists (cartoonists and illustrators) recycle or reuse non-verbal and compositional ideas they have developed earlier. Drawing primarily on neurocognitive theories—such as Teun van Dijk’s multimodal mental model theory, Daniel Kahneman’s theory of judgment, etc.—this article develops a multidisciplinary framework that can account for the fundamental properties of recycling. The paper addresses questions such as: How does recycling operate? Is it a deliberate or unconscious practice? Does it differ from one country or society to the next? What are its main patterns? Are there any gender differences in recycling? Multimodal scholars and cognitivists in various disciplines should find the phenomenon of recycling pertinent to their concerns.

The sound of gender: inferring the gender of names in a foreign language Abstract Much research on sound symbolism has shown that some aspects of word meaning are linked to phonology. For instance, people tend perceive a name as a female one if it is longer, has stress on a later syllable, or ends with a vowel rather than a consonant. It is yet unclear whether people also use sound-symbolic cues to infer name gender from phonology in a language they do not speak. In three experiments, native speakers of English and German listened to real personal names in Min, a south China language that our participants had not been exposed to, and rated to what extent a name sounded male/female. Compared to real female names, real male names were rated more male-sounding by both English and German speakers in a consistent way. Further exploratory analysis showed that male names in Min, compared to female names, are more likely to have consonant-ending syllables and English- and German-speaking participants happened to make use of this sound-symbolic cue in gender judgement. These results show that people are able to make use of sound-symbolic cues to infer the gender of personal names even in a language they do not speak.

Language proficiency in bilinguals enhances action preparedness and control Abstract We examined if bilinguals with superior L2 proficiency perform better on tasks that call for motor preparedness and anticipatory monitoring. While many have studied conflict resolution in isolation, few have explored how control related to action preparation and conflict interaction in the case of bilinguals. We compared high and low proficient Hindi–English bilinguals on a saccadic Stroop task where participants had to program saccades towards visual targets while execution time was manipulated. The results showed that high proficient bilinguals incurred lesser cost when incongruent and congruent trials of the Stroop task were mixed. High proficient bilinguals also committed fewer errors. However, there was no group difference with regard to overall speed of response. This result indicates superior conflict adaptation when monitoring demands are high which suggests that higher practice of bilingualism may influence the action control system including the monitoring system. We discuss the data with regard to bilingualism and its eventual impact on the perceptual and cognitive systems.

Magical thinking and superstitious beliefs in Iranian culture Abstract There is evidence that superstitious beliefs are different across cultures. Yet, very little attention has been allocated to psychological research on culture-specific superstitions, particularly in non-Western societies. The present study examined magical thinking and superstitious beliefs in Iran, developing a culture-specific measure named Iranian Superstitious Beliefs Questionnaire (ISBQ). Following a comprehensive study on folklore superstitions in Iran, we developed a 10-item measure. Women scored higher than men in all items, but the magnitude of the gender effect was small to moderate. Exploratory factor analysis suggested that two factors can be extracted: magical thinking (5 items) and superstitious beliefs (5 items). These two factors were moderately correlated (r = 0.35, p < 0.01). Reliability and convergent validity of the ISBQ were shown to be satisfactory. Therefore, the 10-item ISBQ can be used as a valid and reliable measure of Iranian superstitious beliefs.

Priming semantic structure in Brazilian Portuguese Abstract Structural priming, the tendency for speakers to reuse previously encountered sentence structures, provides some of the strongest evidence for the existence of abstract structural representations in language. In the present research, we investigate the priming of semantic structure in Brazilian Portuguese using the locative alternation: A menina lustrou a mesa com o verniz “The girl rubbed the table with the polish” vs. A menina lustrou o verniz na mesa “The girl rubbed the polish on the table.” On the surface, both locative variants have the same syntactic structure: NP-V-NP-PP. However, location-theme locatives (“rub table with polish” describe a caused-change-of-state event, while theme-location locatives (“rub polish on table”) describe a caused-change-of-location event. We find robust priming on the basis of these semantic differences. This work extends our knowledge by demonstrating that semantic structural priming is not isolated to languages like English (e.g., satellite-framed with strict word order and limited inflection) but is present in a language with very different typological characteristics (e.g., verb-framed and richly inflected with subject dropping).