Cross-linguistic structural priming effects suggest that bilinguals have shared or connected memory representations for similar syntactic structures. This predicts an influence of the production preferences of one language in the other language (Bernolet & Hartsuiker, 2018). We hypothesized that shared structures will lead to a facilitatory effect on production frequencies, whereas connected structures may sometimes lead to an inhibitory effect due to competition between structures. We compared the production preferences and priming effects in Dutch for the frequent by-phrase-final and the uncommon by-phrase-medial passive between Arabic/Berber–Dutch and Turkish–Dutch heritage speakers and native speakers of Dutch. Arabic/Berber–Dutch speakers produced more agentless passives –that is, the alternative shared between their two languages. In contrast, Turkish–Dutch speakers produced less by-phrase-medial passives, although these are less uncommon in Turkish. This inhibition effect suggests that syntactic structures may sometimes be connected rather than shared, although the exact mechanisms behind the inhibitory effects require further research.

Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is a condition characterised by a disturbance in eating behaviour that leads to a significant negative impact on physical, social and nutritional health. The diagnosis of ARFID relies on a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary assessment to understand the individual’s history, physical, social and mental health risk, and any co-occurring mental health difficulties. Consensus guidance suggests that psychological treatment, alongside medical and dietetic input is delivered with consideration of any appropriate adaptions to accommodate developmental stage and/or common co-occurring presentations. This paper has been authored by clinicians working in an out-patient setting for children and adolescents with ARFID, and focuses on the presentation and assessment of ARFID and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) approaches that can help children, young people and their families. After an introductory section, the paper is split into four sections: assessment of ARFID; drivers of avoidant restrictive eating behaviour; multi-disciplinary formulation and intervention planning; and treatment. The treatment section provides an overview of the available research on CBT for ARFID, and a brief summary of the broader evidence base for CBT in children and young people with anxiety. Following a review of the evidence base, three case descriptions are provided to illustrate the clinical application of CBT where fear-based avoidance is the main driver. The paper concludes with practice points for clinicians to take forward when working with children and young people with ARFID.

Notwithstanding remarkable phonological differences, the CV syllable is the most frequent syllable type in both Russian and Hebrew. This led to the prediction that the internal structure of the CVC syllable in the two languages, as reflected in phonological awareness tasks, might be similar. The study tested phonological awareness in two groups of monolingual kindergarteners: Hebrew-speaking (N = 35) and Russian-speaking (N = 20) in order to shed light on the underlying structure of the CVC syllable in the two languages. Phonological awareness tasks targeted awareness of the sub-syllabic structure (structured and unstructured) and phoneme awareness (initial and final). A linear mixed model analysis revealed that children in both groups showed greater facility with body-coda CV-C than with onset-rime C-VC syllable splitting and higher scores on final than on initial phoneme isolation tasks. The unstructured tasks also reflected the cohesion of the CV body in both languages. The findings demonstrate a similar internal representation of the CVC syllable in Russian and in Hebrew speakers as reflected in phonological awareness among preschoolers.

Mental health is inextricably linked to both poverty and future life chances such as education, skills, labour market attachment and social function. Poverty can lead to poorer mental health, which reduces opportunities and increases the risk of lifetime poverty. Cash transfer programmes are one of the most common strategies to reduce poverty and now reach substantial proportions of populations living in low- and middle-income countries. Because of their rapid expansion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, they have recently gained even more importance. Recently, there have been suggestions that these cash transfers might improve youth mental health, disrupting the cycle of disadvantage at a critical period of life. Here, we present a conceptual framework describing potential mechanisms by which cash transfer programmes could improve the mental health and life chances of young people. Furthermore, we explore how theories from behavioural economics and cognitive psychology could be used to more specifically target these mechanisms and optimise the impact of cash transfers on youth mental health and life chances. Based on this, we identify several lines of enquiry and action for future research and policy.

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a cognitive bias that leads to perception and intolerance of uncertainty and has associated negative cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses. It plays a strong role in social anxiety disorder (SAD; Counsell et al., 2017). Our experimental study examined the impact of uncertainty related to a social stressor on SAD using a speech task. We examined features of SAD including anticipatory anxiety, anxiety during the task, willingness to perform the task, and avoidance of the task. Undergraduate students (N = 110, 88% female) with significant social anxiety completed a series of questionnaires, then were randomised to one of two conditions related to level of uncertainty about an impromptu speech task. The experimental condition (state IU) did not predict any of the outcome variables, while trait IU significantly predicted anxiety levels. Results indicate that increased uncertainty of a social situation does not impact acute anxiety levels in SAD and reinforce the strong role of trait IU as a transdiagnostic cognitive variable. Neither trait nor state IU predicted the willingness and avoidance variables. Results also highlighted the central role of the experience of anxiety on avoidance behaviours, above cognitive factors such as IU.

The target article highlights the sources of open-endedness of human communication. However, the authors' perspective does not account for the structure of particular communication systems. To this end, we extend the authors' perspective, in the spirit of evolutionary extended synthesis, with a detailed account of the sources of constraints imposed upon expression in the course of child development.

We challenge the proposal that partner-choice ecology explains the evolutionary emergence of ostensive communication in humans. The good fit between these domains might be because of the opposite relation (ostensive communication promotes the evolution of cooperation) or because of the dependence of both these human-specific traits on a more ancient contributor to human cognitive evolution: the use of technology.

As Heintz & Scott-Phillips rightly argued, pragmatics has been too commonly considered as a supplement to linguistic communication. Their aim to reorient the study of cognitive pragmatics as the foundation of many distinctive features of human behavior finds echo in the neuropsychological literature on tool use, in which the investigation of semantic dementia challenges the classical semantics versus pragmatics dissociation.

The authors present an ambitious attempt to outline the gradual evolution of the cognitive foundations of ostensive communication. We focus on three problematic aspects of the distinction between expression and communication: ambiguity in the distinction's central principle of “complementary mechanisms,” inconsistencies in the application of the distinction across taxa, and the dismissal of mentalizing in nonhuman primates.

We agree with Heintz & Scott-Phillips that pragmatics does not supplement, but is prior to and underpins, language. Indeed, human non-linguistic communication is astonishingly rich, flexible, and subtle, as we illustrate through the game of charades, where people improvise communicative signals when linguistic channels are blocked. The route from non-linguistic charade-like communication to combinatorial language involves (1) local processes of conventionalization and grammaticalization and (2) spontaneous order arising from mutual constraints between different communicative signals.

The problem of generating generally capable agents is an important frontier in artificial intelligence (AI) research. Such agents may demonstrate open-ended, versatile, and diverse modes of expression, similar to humans. We interpret the work of Heintz & Scott-Phillips as a minimal sufficient set of socio-cognitive biases for the emergence of generally expressive AI, separate yet complementary to existing algorithms.

This commentary presents two illustrations, from the world of poker, of the continuity between linguistic and non-linguistic communication and expression, in support of Heintz & Scott-Phillips's account of the evolution of human expression and communication. I also come across the presumption of relevance in the context of a poker table.

Heintz & Scott-Phillips's hypothesis that the topic range and type diversity of human expressive communication gains support from consilience with prior accounts of market exchange as fundamental to unique human niche construction, and of mindshaping as much more important than mindreading. The productivity of the idea is illustrated by the light it might shed on why elephants seem to engage in continuous social communication for little evident purpose.

We use screams to explore ideas presented in the target article. Evolving first in animals as a response to predation, screams reveal more complex social use in nonhuman primates and, in humans, uniquely, are associated with a much greater variety of emotional contexts including fear, anger, surprise, and happiness. This expansion, and the potential for manipulation, promotes listener social vigilance.