Does the way people talk about time affect how they think about it? Whereas English speakers describe the duration of events most often in terms of spatial length (e.g., a long night), Greek speakers tend to talk about duration in terms of multidimensional spatial size (e.g., mia megali nychta, tr. a big night) or amount (e.g., poli ora, tr. much time). After quantifying these linguistic patterns, we gave non-linguistic tests of duration estimation to English and Greek speakers. English speakers’ estimates were influenced more strongly by irrelevant length information and Greek speakers’ by irrelevant amount information, consistent with verbal metaphors for duration in English and Greek. Next, we tested duration estimation with concurrent verbal interference, to confirm that the observed effects did not depend on participants verbally labeling the stimuli during the task. Finally, we trained English speakers to use Greek-like metaphors for duration, which resulted in Greek-like performance on a non-linguistic duration estimation task. Results show that (a) people who talk about time differently also think about it differently, (b) these effects are not due to participants’ using verbal labels during the task, and (c) language can play a causal role in shaping even basic non-linguistic mental representations of time.

This study elicits iconicity ratings for Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) from L1 HKSL Deaf signers and L1 Cantonese hearing non-signers, as well as non-signer guessing accuracy, and compares these norms with other sign languages. Iconicity ratings were collected for 972 HKSL signs from Deaf signers and hearing non-signers and correlated with guesses made by hearing non-signers in three guessing paradigms, that is, three-alternative forced choice (3AFC) translation selection, 3AFC video selection and an open-ended (open cloze) response task. HKSL signs were rated for iconicity comparably to American Sign Language (ASL) and Israeli Sign Language (ISL), with Deaf signers rating signs with higher iconicity overall. We also correlated HKSL iconicity ratings across signs with synonymous translations from languages with available ratings, ASL (634 signs), ISL (158 signs) and British Sign Language (99 signs). Guessing accuracy was found to correlate with higher HKSL iconicity ratings. As for semantic transparency, 3AFC guessing results indicate that many signs are in fact ‘translucent’, whereby inference based on the context provided by answer choices allows hearing non-signers to select the target answer with high accuracy. Our open-ended guessing task yielded considerably lower accuracy; however, accurate responses (2,183 of 15,228) were found to correlate with higher iconicity ratings.

The present study investigated the effects of (in)congruence between a referent’s lifetime (alive vs. dead) and verb tense during language processing, assessing to what extent these effects are modulated by the source of referent-lifetime knowledge. A referent’s lifetime status (dead vs. alive) was conveyed either via a known famous (Experiment 1) or unknown (Experiment 2) name, or was primed non-linguistically via a photograph of a known famous referent (Experiment 3). The findings suggest that referent-lifetime information influenced the processing of verb tense across the different context sources, but not at the earliest point possible (the verb). Instead, lifetime-tense congruence effects emerged two words later (Experiments 1 and 2), or in the sentence-final region (Experiment 3). The presence and size of nested effects were graded by lifetime context: larger congruence effects were elicited by Experiment 1 than by Experiment 2 in both tenses, with significant effects in the present perfect condition only in Experiment 3. In all, referent-lifetime status modulated tense processing in the expected direction, but with variations in whether effects emerge in post-verb regions or at sentence-end depending on how referent-lifetime knowledge was accessed. This temporal variability needs to be considered in accommodating context effects in processing accounts.

Auditory comprehension (AC) develops during the first years of life; however, not all children exhibit typical performance, which may result from the interaction of multiple factors. Therefore, our study aimed to identify the predictive factors of AC in infants with prenatal and perinatal risk factors for atypical brain structure. To test this, a longitudinal study was conducted with 51 participants (28 females; mean age = 36.8 ± 1.4 months). Clinical, demographic, anthropometric, motor, neuropsychological and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were collected from birth to 36 months. A regression model revealed that the age at achievement of fine motor milestones, gestational weeks, corpus callosum volume and maternal age were predictive of AC at 36 months. Moreover, the mental development index (MDI) of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-2 (BSID-2) assessment at 12 months predicted AC scores at 36 months. We concluded that AC is influenced by caregivers’ interactions and motor development, thereby facilitating new learning opportunities, but is also affected by the neuropathological patterns associated with their risk condition. In addition, early identification of predictor factors may enable targeted interventions during sensitive developmental periods.

The ‘culturomics’ and other big data approaches have been widely used to trace the development of human cognition and social change. In this cross-lingual study, we examine historical changes in the frequency of discourse connectives (DCs) in Chinese, English, French, German and Spanish over the last two centuries. Our analyses reveal a robust and long-term decline in the frequency of most DCs in English, French, German and Spanish between 1800 and 2000. These diachronic trends closely parallel changes in other stylistic indicators, pointing to coherent shifts in language use and register evolution. Although our findings align with previous studies and recent observations of changing patterns in linguistic rationality, they should not be interpreted as evidence of declining human capacities for logic or rational reasoning. Instead, the observed patterns reflect a broad and sustained process of ‘colloquialization’ in written language, driven by socio-cultural transformations and evolving communicative norms. This study advances our understanding of historical language change and its underlying mechanisms, offering insights into the coevolution of language, cognition and society.

This study investigated the role of linguistic similarity in the foreign language effect (FLE) on decision-making and emotional resonance. Previous research has found that using a foreign language (L2) leads to reduced emotionality and increased rationality compared to a first language (L1). We report two experiments with different target languages: Experiment 1 investigated L1 and L2 speakers of English, and Experiment 2 investigated L1 and L2 speakers of Swedish. Participants in both experiments completed three decision-making tasks, including the Asian disease problem, a moral dilemma, and the Cognitive reflection test. The L2 speakers also reported their emotional resonance using the Reduced Emotional Resonance in LX scale (RER-LX). Results from Experiment 1 showed no significant FLE in the decision-making tasks but indicated that linguistic similarity affects emotional resonance. Experiment 2 found a classic FLE in all decision-making tasks, with participants in L2 contexts making more rational and utilitarian decisions. However, linguistic similarity did not consistently affect the magnitude of the FLE. The study highlights the complexity of the FLE and suggests that factors such as age of acquisition and immersion may influence its manifestation.

The languages individuals speak have been observed to influence how they perceive and interpret certain aspects of the world, but the conditions that give rise to these effects are not always clearly defined. One way to address the issue is to examine specific task contexts in which language is likely to modulate perception. Building on this, the aim of the present study was to investigate the role that native language (L1) plays in shaping motion processing in functional monolingual Turkish and English speakers (i.e., without intermediate or advanced proficiency in a second language) by using a supervised classification paradigm that involved sorting animated events based on either manner of motion or path. A total of 120 participants, including 60 native English speakers and 60 native Turkish speakers, were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions. The findings revealed a performance advantage for the English speakers in the manner-discrimination condition, in line with specific linguistic distinctions between the two languages. In contrast, overall performance was similar across the two groups when discrimination was based on path, a feature inherently expressed in both languages.

In this work, we use language modeling to investigate the factors that influence insertional code-switching. Code-switching occurs when a speaker alternates between one language variety (the primary language) and another (the secondary language), and is widely observed in multilingual contexts. Recent work has shown that code-switching is often correlated with areas of low predictability in the primary language, but it is unclear whether low primary language predictability only makes the secondary language relatively easier to produce at code-switching points – that is, purely speaker-driven code-switching – or whether code-switching is additionally used by speakers for other purposes, for instance to signal the need for greater attention on the part of listeners. In this paper, we use bilingual Chinese–English online forum posts and transcripts of spontaneous Chinese–English speech to replicate prior findings that low primary language (Chinese) predictability is correlated with insertional switches to the secondary language (English). We then demonstrate that the predictability of the English productions is even lower than that of meaning-equivalent Chinese alternatives, and these are therefore not easier to produce, rejecting the purely speaker-driven theory of code-switching in both writing and speech.

The FrameNet project is a large-scale frame-semantic database with a seemingly usage-based core: It draws on 200,000 annotated sentences from representative corpora and offers the most comprehensive description of semantic valency patterns in English to date. Nevertheless, its empirical validity is weakened by the lack of statistical information on the distribution of lexical units, frames and frame elements. Similarly, the characterisation of frame elements as core, core-unexpressed, peripheral or extra-thematic – intended to indicate their essentiality to a frame – is primarily motivated on theoretical grounds. This raises the question of whether these labels are consistent with actual language use. After exhaustively extracting frequency data from Python’s NLTK FrameNet Corpus for all attested combinations of verbs, frames and frame elements, hierarchical gradient boosting models were trained on information-theoretic measures and word embeddings to predict the coreness of frame elements. The models provide strong usage-based evidence for a general core versus non-core distinction but cast doubt on further subdivisions such as core versus core-unexpressed or peripheral versus extra-thematic. While further validation is necessary, this contribution offers the first statistical perspective on the current state of FrameNet and its compatibility with usage-based approaches.

Happiness is a complex concept that has been intensively researched from many perspectives, but the linguistic aspects of this phenomenon are still under-researched. Using corpus-based analysis of semantically similar words (word embedding), the author studies lexical units denoting happiness and joy in three West Slavic languages (Polish, Czech, Slovak) and compares them with the corresponding lexical units in English. The results show that despite the mutual linguistic and non-linguistic ties, the Polish, Czech and Slovak understanding of happiness exhibits not only similarities (e.g. the relationship between happiness and joy and the outward orientation of joy) but also significant differences (e.g. the different value of the component ‘luck’ in happiness, a different relationship between joy, sadness and fear, and cross-cultural differences related to religion). The results also highlight similarities and differences between West Slavic languages and English. In addition to this, the study tests the advantages and limitations of the word-embedding analysis for the analysis of concepts and their culturally specific features. The author believes that the method is useful because it offers new insights into the analysed data, but it also requires human oversight and careful interpretation.