Jyotsna Vaid

ASYMMETRIES IN THE PERCEPTION OF FACIAL AFFECT: IS THERE AN INFLUENCE OF READING HABITS?

Perceptions of happy facial affect from asymmetric composite faces presented in free vision were compared in four groups: left-to-right readers (Hindi), right-to-left readers (Arabic), left-to-right and right-to-left readers (Hindi/Urdu) and illiterates (Hindi/Urdu). Right- and left-handed users of Hindi and Urdu were studied. The analysis of asymmetry scores revealed a significant effect of Group, such that a left hemifield preference was present only in the left-to-right (Hindi) group. There were no reliable differences between right- and left-handers. Furthermore, the leftward bias was present in a significantly larger proportion of Hindi than Urdu or Arabic readers. These results are taken to reflect an interaction between a cerebral laterality effect and a directional scanning effect in facial affect judgment.

Language processing in bilinguals: Psycholinguistic and neuropsychological perspectives

Part 1: Psycholinguistic Perspectives 1. Skilled Reading in the Second Language Norman Segalowitz 2. Lexical Function: Is a Bilingual Account Necessary? Kim Kirsner 3. Memory for Bilingual Prose Kirsten M. Hummel 4. Pairing First- and Second-Language Speech and Writing in Ways that Aid Language Acquisition Wallace E. Lambert 5. Selected Issues in Second and Third Language Learning Edith Magiste 6. Intrasentential Code-Switching: The Case of Language Assignment Miwa Nishima 7. Processing Mixed Language: Some Preliminary Findings Francois Grosjean and Carlos Soares Part 2: Neuropsychological Perspectives 8. Aphasia in a Multilingual Society: A Preliminary Study Prithika Chary 9. Sentence Interpretation Strategies in Healthy and Aphasic Bilingual Adults Beverly B. Wulfeck, Lary Juarez, Elizabeth A. Bates and Kerry Kilborn 10. The Ageing Bilingual Loraine Obler, Martin Albert and Sandra Lozowick 11. Leaning to the Right: Some Thoughts on Hemisphere Involvement in Language Acquisition Eta I. Schneiderman 12. Bilingualism in a Visuo-Gestural Mode Catherine Kettrick and Nancy Hatfield 13. Script Effects and Cerebral Lateralization: The Case of Chinese Characters Reiko Hasuike, Ovid Tzeng and Daisy Hung

Language and hand preference in early development

Although there is a demonstrated bias toward use of the right hand from birth, the meaning of this bias and its stability over time are unclear. Within a longitudinal study of language development at 13,20, and 28 months, we extracted information about unimanual and bimanual hand preference from videotapes. Both unimanual and bimanual actions on objects were divided into symbolic (e.g., pretend play) and nonsymbolic (e.g., picking up and putting down). A separate count was made of communicative pointing gestures. Children showed a marked right‐hand bias (70%) across categories, a bias that did not differ as a function of age, sex, or unimanual or bimanual type. However, preference for the right hand was stronger for symbolic than for nonsymbolic movements in both unimanual and bimanual activity. At 13 and 28 months, there was a significantly greater right‐hand bias in pointing than in any other manual activity. Total right‐hand bias at 13 months was significantly correlated with analytic/ receptive aspect...

Bilingualism and Brain Lateralization

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the subject of bilingualism and brain lateralization. The notion that the right hemisphere may participate in the relearning of language(s) or certain language functions following left-hemisphere damage has been suggested in several case studies of polyglot aphasia. It has also been proposed that the right hemisphere in bilinguals may, even premorbidly, share language functions with the left hemisphere to a greater extent than is the case in unilinguals. Support for the latter possibility obtains from an extensive survey of the early polyglot aphasia literature, which revealed that the incidence of crossed aphasia in right-handers was 14% among the polyglots, as compared to an estimated 2% among unilinguals. This chapter focuses on theoretical issues bearing on the problem of cerebral hemispheric correlates of language processing in bilinguals. It presents a general summary of clinical and experimental findings, and also discusses a view to addressing whether and why factors intrinsic to bilingualism might influence the extent to which the left and right cerebral hemispheres partake differentially in language processing.

Differential cerebral involvement in the cognitive functioning of bilinguals.

Abstract The cognitive processing strategies of two groups of French-English bilinguals were studied by means of an auditory Stroop test designed to evaluate cerebral hemispheric involvement. An “early bilingual” group were bilingual before the age of 5, and a “late bilingual” group were bilingual after the age of 10. Stimuli were words uttered in pitches that were related to word meanings either congruently (as in the word “high” uttered in a high pitch) or incongruently (the word “haute” uttered in a low pitch). In one condition, subjects were to differentiate low from high pitches, disregarding meaning, while in a second condition, they were to disregard pitch and respond to word meanings. Measures of field independence were also taken. Results of data analyses suggest that male early bilinguals—the most field independent subgroup—process meaning efficiently in both cerebral hemispheres, but process pitch better in the right hemisphere. However, male late bilinguals and female bilinguals, both early and late, process meaning more rapidly in the right cerebral hemisphere and pitch equally rapidly in both hemispheres. The findings are interpreted as reflecting hemisphere-based strategy and sex differences in information-processing by the two bilingual groups.

Laterality and language experience

A meta-analysis was conducted on studies that examined hemispheric functional asymmetry for language in brain-intact monolingual and bilingual adults. Data from 23 laterality studies that directly compared bilingual and monolingual speakers on the same language were analysed (n = 1234). Variables examined were language experience (monolingual, bilingual), experimental paradigm (dichotic listening, visual hemifield presentation, and dual task) and, among bilinguals, the influence of second language proficiency (proficient vs nonproficient) and onset of bilingualism (early, or before age 6; and late, or after age 6). Overall, monolinguals and late bilinguals showed reliable left hemisphere dominance, while early bilinguals showed reliable bilateral hemispheric involvement. Within bilinguals, there was no reliable effect of language proficiency when age of L2 acquisition was controlled. The findings indicate that early learning of one vs. two languages predicts divergent patterns of cerebral language lateralisation in adulthood.

Cerebral lateralization in bilinguals: Methodological issues

The literature on lateralization for language in bilinguals manifests two apparent contradictions. Some papers demonstrate differences in lateralization between bilinguals and monolinguals; others demonstrate none. In studies with exclusively bilingual subjects, some papers demonstrate differences between the lateralization for the two languages, while others demonstrate none. This paper discusses the range of methodological parameters which must be borne in mind when conducting or evaluating studies of lateralization for language in bilinguals. These include issues of subject selection, language and stimulus selection, testing procedures, data analysis, and interpretation of results.

Exploring word recognition in a semi-alphabetic script: The case of Devanagari.

Unlike other writing systems that are readily classifiable as alphabetic or syllabic in their structure, the Indic Devanagari script (of which Hindi is an example) has properties of both syllabic and alphabetic writing systems. Whereas Devanagari consonants are written in a linear left-to-right order, vowel signs are positioned nonlinearly above, below, or to either side of the consonants. This fact results in certain words in Hindi for which, in a given syllable, the vowel precedes the consonant in writing but follows it in speech. The current research exploited this property of the script to examine when the disparity between spatial and temporal sequencing would incur a processing cost and the implications of the findings from naming speed, accuracy, and writing order for the level at which words in Devanagari are segmented. The results support a partly phonemic and partly syllabic level of segmentation, consistent with the structural hybridity of the script.

Getting a joke: the time course of meaning activation in verbal humor

Two lexical decision semantic priming experiments examined when, in the course of reading a joke, the initial and the intended meanings are primed; whether the meanings overlap in time; and what happens to the initial reading when the punchline is encountered. In Experiment 1, probes related to the first activated sense (S1) vs. the second sense (S2), or true meaning, were presented at each of three temporal sites for visually displayed joke tests: shortly after joke onset, at an intermediary position, and at punchline offset, whereas in Experiment 2, probes were presented at joke offset following prolonged viewing. The results from Experiment 1 showed S1 priming effects at the initial and intermediary time point. Priming for S2 also emerged at the intermediary time point and persisted at the final time point. In Experiment 2, the priming effect at joke offset was reliable only for S2. The results are taken to support a concurrent meaning activation view [in line with Attardo, Humor 10 (1997) 395] at incongruity detection, and a selective activation view [in line with Giora, Journal of Pragmatics 16 (1991) 465] at incongruity resolution.

Sentence Interpretation in Normal and Aphasic Hindi Speakers

In interpreting a sentence, listeners rely on a variety of linguistic cues to assign grammatical roles such as agent and patient. The present study considered the relative ranking of three cues to agenthood (word order, noun animacy, and subject-verb agreement) in normal and aphasic speakers of Hindi. Because animacy plays a grammatical role in Hindi (determining the nature and acceptability of sentences without accusative marking), this language is relevant to the claim that Brocas aphasia involves a dissociation between grammar and semantics. Results of Study 1 with normal Hindi-dominant speakers showed that animacy is the strongest cue in this language, while agreement is the weakest cue. In Study 2, Hindi-English bilinguals were tested in both their languages. Most showed the normal animacy-dominant monolingual pattern in Hindi, with a mixture of strategies from both languages in their interpretation of English. A substantial minority showed mixed strategies in both languages. Only 5 of 48 subjects displayed a complete separation between languages, with animacy dominance in Hindi and word order dominance in English. In Study 3, two Hindi-English bilinguals with Brocas aphasia were tested in both languages. Results indicate (a) greater use of animacy in Hindi than in English and (b) greater use of word order in English than in Hindi. The strategies displayed by these patients fall well within the range observed among bilingual normals. We conclude that the use of animacy in sentence interpretation by these aphasic patients reflects preservation of normal, language-specific processing strategies; it cannot be interpreted as a nonlinguistic strategy developed to compensate for receptive agrammatism. Results are discussed in light of other cross-linguistic evidence on sentence comprehension in monolingual and bilingual aphasics.