1.

Sound of Words is No Coincidence

Summary: Researchers investigate the association between sounds and the meaning of words.

Source: Max Planck Institute.

Particular sounds are preferred or avoided in non-related languages far more often than previously
assumed.

It appears that meanings of words are far more often associated with certain sounds than is printed in
linguistics textbooks. Up to now, linguists assumed that the association between how words sound and
what they mean is arbitrary in most cases. Cases like the use of the letter m in the word for mother in
many languages were previously considered rare exceptions to this rule. An international research team,
including scientists from the Max Planck Institutes for Mathematics in the Sciences and the Science of
Human History, have carried out a comprehensive analysis which disproves this assumption.

N as in nose an association that probably did not arise by chance. The sound n is found in the word for
the olfactory organ more frequently than in other words. The same applies to the sound u; the sound a, on
the other hand, is seldom found anywhere in the world. Some words for particular concepts as body
parts seem to have preferences towards carrying specific sounds in comparison to the rest of the words,
says Damin E. Blasi, a scientist from the Max Planck Institutes for Mathematics in the Sciences and for
the Science of Human History. Blasi made a key contribution to a study in which a team of researchers,
including scientists from Germany, the USA, Denmark and other countries, investigated the associations
between sound and meaning in words.

The scientists used data for the study from over two-thirds of the 6,000-plus languages spoken throughout
the world. That is practically all of the available data, says Peter F. Stadler, Professor at the University
of Leipzig and academic staff member at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences. Using
the data pool of 4,000-plus languages, the researchers examined whether 100 words use certain sounds
more frequently or more rarely than would be normal based on arbitrary association.

They actually discovered such positive and negative associations in languages that are not related to each
other for many of the examined words. For example, the sounds o, u, p, k and q arise frequently in the
words used for knee. The term tongue has an e and l in many languages but rarely has a u or a k. These
associations are not limited to parts of the body: the word used to denote sand throughout the world
often contains the sound s, and the sound t is frequently found in the words used for stone. According
to our analysis, certain sounds are preferred or avoided in a large proportion of all words across continents
and language families and, moreover, by people from very different cultural, historical and geographical
contexts, says Damin Blasi. In view of the enormous possibilities that exist for variations in the
worlds languages, the result is astonishing and alters our understanding of the boundary conditions under
which people communicate.

Most people assume a bouba is a big animal, and a kiki small one

Up to now, we assumed that such associations between sounds and meanings are very rare, says Harald
Hammarstrm, a linguist from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena. In
addition to the sound m in words denoting mother, linguists are also familiar with the bouba-kiki effect:
they observe this phenomenon when they show someone a large animal like an elephant and a small one,
for example a bird, and ask them which of the animals is called bouba, and which kiki in a language they
do not know. Most people intuitively select bouba for the elephant and kiki for the small bird. The vowels
a and o tend to be associated more with large things and e and i with small ones. However, this was
practically the only known association of this kind that extends across language families.

Linguists could also have reached the view that meanings mostly came to be associated with their sounds
randomly, as the available studies did not allow any other conclusion. Previous studies were mostly
limited to individual associations or a limited sample of languages, explains Damin Blasi. Thanks to
the large volume of data we analyzed, we were also able to establish the spatial distribution of these
associations and how they change over time.

Using bioinformatics tools developed by Peter F. Stadler, the team of researchers discovered the fact that
the associations are far more common than previously assumed. A mathematician, Stadler usually uses
statistical instruments to discover genetic correlations in biology. I kind of stumbled into the area of
linguistics, says Stadler. There are similarities but also differences between bioinformatics and
linguistics, and he adapted the mathematical formulas to them.

Tests for statistical artifacts

In addition, Peter F. Stadler, Damin Blasi and their colleagues amassed all of the factors that could have
an influence on the associations between sounds and meanings but did not support the premise that some
sounds are preferred or avoided for certain meanings throughout the world. Then they developed
statistical tests to eliminate such artifacts. Genealogical relationships between languages are such a factor.
They can result in the same sound-meaning relationships arising in different languages. However, the
researchers had to exclude these cases, as they were only interested in the sounds that are preferred or
avoided in words that are used in non-related languages.

People all over the world prefer certain sounds for many concepts, whereas they avoid others, as an
international team lead by Max Planck scientists has found out. Neurosciencenews image is for
illustrative purposes only.
The scientists also tested whether individual sounds arise more frequently in a term because the
corresponding word was adopted by one language from another unrelated one spoken in a neighbouring
region. Word length also played a role in the analysis: the longer a word is, the more likely that individual
sounds will arise in it. That would also give rise to a statistical artefact, says Damin Blasi.

Search for original language becoming more difficult

Using similar statistical studies, the international team also looked for possible reasons why some sounds
are chosen more often for a particular term than others. We have been unable to explain the associations
between sounds and meanings up to now, says Harald Hammarstrm. The team reached its conclusion
with the help of statistical tests for certain causes. For example, it has been conjectured, that words with
certain sounds for a particular meaning can easily spread from one language to another if this
combination is generally perceived as being suitable and pleasant. If this is the case, it must be possible to
see how this spreads from a starting point into neighbouring language communities on a map showing the
distribution areas of individual sound-meaning associations. The researchers found as little evidence for
this as they did for the influence of a hypothetical original language, whose existence can possibly still be
felt in many of todays languages. If it existed, the associations between sounds and meanings in the
different languages would have to be distributed in a similar pattern to related words. This is not the case,
however.

These insights into sound-meaning relationships have far-reaching consequences for linguistics, says
Damin Blasi. Particularly for the analysis of relationships between languages and the search for the
original language. In such studies, linguists have also been searching for sounds that are associated with
one word in different languages. But we are raising a warning flag here, says Peter F. Stadler. It appears
that people associate many terms with the same sounds, irrespective of whether their languages are
related to each other or not.

REFERENCE:
http://neurosciencenews.com/language-word-sounds-5064/?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+neuroscience-rss-feeds-
neuroscience-news+%28Neuroscience+News+Updates%29

2. How Words Are Represented in the Brain

Summary: A new study sheds light on the neurobiology of reading.

Source: University of Pittsburgh.

Using direct neural recordings from the visual word form area, researchers were able to see words that
patients read as the patients read them.

Reading is a relatively modern and uniquely human skill. For this reason, visual word recognition has
been a puzzle for neuroscientists because the neural systems responsible for reading could not have
evolved for this purpose. The existence of brain regions dedicated to reading has been fiercely debated
for almost 200 years, said Avniel Ghuman, an assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh
Department of Neurological Surgery. Wernicke, Dejerine, and Charcot, among the most important and
influential neurologists and neuroscientists of the 19th century, debated whether or not there was a visual
center for words in the brain.

In recent years, much of this debate has centered on the left mid-fusiform gyrus, which some call the
visual word form area. A recent study by Pitt neuroscience researchers addresses this debate and sheds
light on our understanding of the neurobiology of reading.

In a study to be published July 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ghuman,
Elizabeth Hirshorn of Pitts Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC), and colleagues from
the Department of Psychology and Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition used direct neural recordings
and brain stimulation to study the role of the visual word form area in reading in four epileptic patients.
The patients chose surgical treatment for their drug-resistant epilepsy and volunteered to participate in the
research study. As part of the surgical treatment, neurosurgeons implanted electrodes in the patients
visual word form area, providing an unprecedented opportunity to understand how the brain recognizes
printed words.

First, painless electrical brain stimulation was used through the electrodes to disrupt the normal
functioning of the visual word form area, which adversely affected the patients ability to read words. One
patient dramatically misperceived letters, and another felt that there were words and parts of words
present that were not in what she was reading. Stimulation to this region did not disrupt their ability to
name objects or faces.

Image shows a brain with the fusiform gyrus highlighted.

In recent years, much of this debate has centered on the left mid-fusiform gyrus, which some call the
visual word form area. A recent study by Pitt neuroscience researchers addresses this debate and sheds
light on our understanding of the neurobiology of reading. NeuroscienceNews.com image is for
illustrative purposes only.
In addition to stimulating through these electrodes, the activity from the area was recorded while the
patients read words. Using techniques from machine learning to analyze the brain activity that evolved
over a few hundred milliseconds from this region, the researchers could tell what word a patient was
reading at a particular moment. This suggests that neural activity in the area codes knowledge about
learned visual words that can be used to discriminate even words that are only one letter different from
one another (for example, hint and lint).

This study shows that the visual word form area is exquisitely tuned to the fine details of written words
and that this area plays a critical role in refining the brains representation of what we are reading. The
disrupted word and letter perception seen with stimulation provides direct evidence that the visual word
form area plays a dedicated role in skilled reading, said Hirshorn. These results also have important
implications for understanding and treating reading disorders. The activity in the visual word form area,
along with its interactions with other brain areas involved in language processing, could be a marker for
proficient reading. Having a better understanding of this neural system could be critical for diagnosing
reading disorders and developing targeted therapies.

It is exciting that with modern brain-recording techniques and advanced analysis methods, we are finally
able to start answering questions about the brain and the mind that people have asked for centuries and
contribute to our understanding of reading disorders, said Ghuman.

REFERENCE:
http://neurosciencenews.com/visual-word-form-area-neuroscience-4723/

3. Decoding and disrupting left midfusiform gyrus activity during word reading

Significance

A central issue in the neurobiology of reading is a debate regarding the visual representation of words,
particularly in the left midfusiform gyrus (lmFG). Direct neural recordings, electrical brain stimulation,
and pre-/postsurgical neuropsychological testing provided strong evidence that the lmFG supports an
orthographically specific visual word form system that becomes specialized for the representation of
orthographic knowledge. Machine learning elucidated the dynamic role lmFG plays with an early
processing stage organized by orthographic similarity and a later stage supporting individuation of single
words. The results suggest that there is a dynamic shift from gist-level to individuated orthographic
representation in the lmFG in service of visual word recognition.

Abstract
The nature of the visual representation for words has been fiercely debated for over 150 y. We used direct
brain stimulation, pre- and postsurgical behavioral measures, and intracranial electroencephalography to
provide support for, and elaborate upon, the visual word form hypothesis. This hypothesis states that
activity in the left midfusiform gyrus (lmFG) reflects visually organized information about words and
word parts. In patients with electrodes placed directly in their lmFG, we found that disrupting lmFG
activity through stimulation, and later surgical resection in one of the patients, led to impaired perception
of whole words and letters. Furthermore, using machine-learning methods to analyze the
electrophysiological data from these electrodes, we found that information contained in early lmFG
activity was consistent with an orthographic similarity space. Finally, the lmFG contributed to at least two
distinguishable stages of word processing, an early stage that reflects gist-level visual representation
sensitive to orthographic statistics, and a later stage that reflects more precise representation sufficient for
the individuation of orthographic word forms. These results provide strong support for the visual word
form hypothesis and demonstrate that across time the lmFG is involved in multiple stages of orthographic
representation.
fusiform gyrus word reading temporal dynamics intracranial EEG electrical stimulation
A central debate in understanding how we read, documented at least as far back as Charcot, Dejerine, and
Wernicke, has revolved around whether visual representations of words can be found in the brain.
Specifically, Charcot and Dejerine posited the existence of a center for the visual memory of words (1),
whereas Wernicke firmly rejected that notion, proposing that reading only necessitates representations of
visual letters that feed forward into the language system (2). Similarly, the modern debate revolves around
whether there is a visual word form system that becomes specialized for the representation of
orthographic knowledge (e.g., the visual forms of letter combinations, morphemes, and whole words) (1,
3, 4). One side of the debate is characterized by the view that the brain possesses a visual word form area
that is a major, reproducible site of orthographic knowledge (5), whereas the other side disavows any
need for reading-specific visual specialization, arguing instead for neurons that are general purpose
analyzers of visual forms (6).

The visual word form hypothesis has attracted great scrutiny because the historical novelty of reading
makes it highly unlikely that evolution has created a brain system specialized for reading; this places the
analysis of visual word forms in stark contrast to other processes that are thought to have specialized
neural systems, such as social, verbal language, or emotional processes, which can be seen in our
evolutionary ancestors. Thus, testing the word form hypothesis is critical not only for understanding the
neural basis of reading, but also for understanding how the brain organizes information that must be
learned through extensive experience and for which we have no evolutionary bias.

Advances in neuroimaging and lesion mapping have focused the modern debate surrounding the visual
word form hypothesis on the left midfusiform gyrus (lmFG). This focus reflects widespread agreement
that the lmFG region plays a critical role in reading. Supporting evidence includes demonstrations that
literacy shapes the functional specialization of the lmFG in children and adults (710); the lmFG is
affected by orthographic training in adults (11, 12); and damage to the lmFG impairs visual word
identification in literate adults (13, 14). However, debate remains about whether the lmFG constitutes a
visual word form area (3, 5, 1518) or not (6, 19, 20); that is, does it support the representation of
orthographic knowledge about graphemes, their combinatorial statistics, orthographic similarities between
words, and word identity (21), or does it have receptive properties tuned for general purpose visual
analysis, with lexical knowledge emerging from the spoken language network (6)?

To test the limits of the modern visual word form hypothesis, we present results from four neurosurgical
patients (P1P4) with electrodes implanted in their lmFG. We acquired pre- and postsurgery
neuropsychological data in P1, performed direct cortical stimulation in P1 and P2, and recorded
intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) in all four participants to examine a number of indicators that
have been proposed as tests for the visual word form hypothesis by both supporters and opponents of this
hypothesis (5, 6). Pattern classification methods from machine learning were then used to measure
whether neural coding in this region is sufficient to represent different aspects of orthographic knowledge,
including the identity of a printed word. We separately evaluated the time course of lmFG sensitivity to
different aspects of orthographic information to assess both early processing, which should exclusively or
predominantly capture bottom-up visual processing, and later processing, which likely captures feedback
and recurrent interactions with higher-level visual and nonvisual regions. Consequently, we were able to
assess the dynamic nature of orthographic representation within the lmFG and thereby provide a novel
perspective on the nature of visual word representation in the brain.

Discussion
Our findings, which indicate that orthographic representation within the lmFG qualitatively shifts over
time, provide a novel advancement on the debate about the visual word form hypothesis (1, 2).
Specifically, we demonstrated that lmFG meets all of the proposed criteria for a visual word form system:
early activity in lmFG coded for orthographic information at the sublexical level, disrupting lmFG
activity impaired both lexical and sublexical perception, and early activity reflected an orthographic
similarity space (24). Early activity in lmFG is sufficient to support a gist-level representation of words
that differentiates between words with different visual statistics (e.g., orthographic bigram frequency).

Notably, the results in the late time window suggest that orthographic representation in lmFG shifts from
gist-level representations to more precise representations sufficient for the individuation of visual words.
In this late window, the lmFG became nearly insensitive to orthographic similarity as shown by similar
classification accuracy for word pairs that differed by one letter compared with word pairs that were
completely orthographically different (18). This kind of unique encoding of words is required to permit
the individuation of visual words, a necessary step in word recognition (see Table 1 for summary). The
time window in which this individuation signal is seen suggests that interactions with other brain regions
transform the orthographic representation within the lmFG in support of word recognition. Such
interactivity could function to integrate the orthographic, phonological, and semantic knowledge that
together uniquely identifies a written word (23). Lack of spatiotemporal resolution to detect dynamic
changes in lmFG coding of orthographic stimuli using fMRI may help to explain competing evidence for
and against the visual word form hypothesis in the literature (5, 6).

The dynamic shift in the specificity of orthographic representation in the lmFG has a very similar time
course as the coarse-to-fine processing shown in face-sensitive regions of the human fusiform (33).
Considering that only an gist-level representation is available until 250 ms, and that saccade planning
and execution generally occur within 200250 ms during natural reading (34), the gist-to-individuated
word-processing dynamic has important implications for neurobiological theories of reading; it suggests
that when visual word form knowledge first makes contact with the language system, it is in the form of
gist-level information that is insufficient to distinguish between visually similar alternatives. The
identification of the early gist-level representation is consistent with evidence that readers are vulnerable
to making errors in word individuation during natural reading, but contextual constraints are normally
sufficient to avoid misinterpretations (35). In other words, in most cases, accurate individuation is
achieved through continued processing that likely involves mutually constraining orthographic,
phonological, semantic, and contextual information, resulting in a more precise individuated word
representation.

Another notable pattern in the gist-to-individuation temporal dynamic is that during the later time window
when individuation is significant (300500 ms; Fig. 5), we found that the power to detect category-level
word selectivity (i.e., words vs. bodies and scrambled images; Fig. 2), which arguably only requires gist-
level discrimination, weakened and the event-related potential (ERP) response waned. This result is also
consistent with a temporal selectivity pattern described for faces (33). One potential explanation for this
selectivity and power shift could be that individuation is achieved by relatively few neurons (sparse
coding) (36). Sparse coding would imply that relatively few word-sensitive neurons were active, and that
the summed approximate word-related activity in this time period therefore would be weak. However, the
neurons that were active encode for more precise word information, which would explain the significant
word individuation reported here.

The mechanism underlying the representational shift from gist to individuation could have implications
for models of reading disorders, such as dyslexia, where visual word identification is impaired (37).
Indeed, the effects of lmFG stimulation, especially slower reading times, are suggestive of acquired (14)
and developmental reading pathologies (38), which have been linked to dysfunction of lmFG (39). The
extent to which individual word reading may be impaired by excess noise in the visual word form system,
or the inadequate ability to contextually constrain noisy input into the language system, is for future
research to untangle.
In summary, our results provide strong evidence that the lmFG is involved in at least two temporally
distinguishable processing stages: an early stage that allows for category-level word decoding and gist-
level representation organized by orthographic similarity, and a later stage supporting precise word
individuation. An unanswered question is how the representation in the lmFG transitions between stages
in these local neural populations and how interactions between areas involved in reading may govern
these transitions. Taken together, the current results suggest a model in which lmFG contributes to
multiple levels of orthographic representation via a dynamic shift in the computational analysis of
different aspects of word information.

REFERENCE:
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/29/8162.full

4. Soundmeaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages

Significance

The independence between sound and meaning is believed to be a crucial property of language: across
languages, sequences of different sounds are used to express similar concepts (e.g., Russian ptitsa,
Swahili ndege, and Japanese tori all mean bird). However, a careful statistical examination of
words from nearly two-thirds of the worlds languages reveals that unrelated languages very often use (or
avoid) the same sounds for specific referents. For instance, words for tongue tend to have l or u, round
often appears with r, and small with i. These striking similarities call for a reexamination of the
fundamental assumption of the arbitrariness of the sign.

Abstract
It is widely assumed that one of the fundamental properties of spoken language is the arbitrary relation
between sound and meaning. Some exceptions in the form of nonarbitrary associations have been
documented in linguistics, cognitive science, and anthropology, but these studies only involved small
subsets of the 6,000+ languages spoken in the world today. By analyzing word lists covering nearly two-
thirds of the worlds languages, we demonstrate that a considerable proportion of 100 basic vocabulary
items carry strong associations with specific kinds of human speech sounds, occurring persistently across
continents and linguistic lineages (linguistic families or isolates). Prominently among these relations, we
find property words (small and i, full and p or b) and body part terms (tongue and l, nose and n).
The areal and historical distribution of these associations suggests that they often emerge independently
rather than being inherited or borrowed. Our results therefore have important implications for the
language sciences, given that nonarbitrary associations have been proposed to play a critical role in the
emergence of cross-modal mappings, the acquisition of language, and the evolution of our species unique
communication system.

Reference:
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/39/10818.abstract

5. Researchers Find the Sounds We Build Words From Have Built-In Meanings

It seems like no matter where you are in the world, the first word a baby learns is mama. Even in two
tongues as different as Chinese and English, its the same. Though linguists have long believed theres no
inherent link between word meanings and the sounds they use, a new study encompassing 6,000
languages, Sound-Meaning Association Biases Evidenced Across Thousands of Languages, suggests
there actually is. It turns out that sounds for common things pop up in words far more often than mere
chance would explain. The study was co-authored by professor of psychology Morten H. Christiansen,
director of Cornells Cognitive Neuroscience lab, Damian Blasi, University of Zurich; Soeren Wichmann,
University of Leiden; Harald Hammarstrm, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History; and
Peter Stadler, University of Leipzig.

The researchers found a strong statistical relationship between certain concepts like body parts, family
members, things in nature and the sounds in the words that describe them. There does seem to be
something about the human condition that leads to these patterns, Christiansen told Cornell Chronicle.
We dont know what it is, but we know its there.

The idea that sounds dont come with meaning goes back a century to the findings of Swiss researcher
Ferdinand de Saussure. There has been evidence to the contrary before, as noted by Madhuvanthi Kannan
in Scientific American: In a famous linguistic test, subjects almost always gravitate to the non-word
baluma to describe rounded shapes and takete for more angular objects. If you think about it, there
appears to be something inherently rounded about baluma, and sharp and pointed about takete. One idea,
Kannan writes, is that the manner in which we produce sounds can suggest their meaning. When we say
grand (French, for large), for example, our mouth expands as if to mimic the size of the object we refer
to, whereas, when we say petit, the vocal tract constricts, and the word plants an impression of a tiny
object.

Researchers for the new study examined 40-100 basic vocabulary words throughout 62% of currently
active languages and in 85% of linguistic traditions.

One of the findings is that words for some universal concepts tend to stay away from certain sounds.
This was especially true for pronouns. For example, words for I are unlikely to include sounds
involving u, p, b, t, s, r and l, writes the Chronicles Susan Kelley. You is unlikely to include sounds
involving u, o, p, t, d, q, s, r and l.

We know: you. English proved to be a regular outlier, not playing by the rules other languages follow.
On the other hand, red and round do have an r sound, and sand does usually have an s, as is
typically the case.

A couple of other interesting, if unrelated, findings: Sound associations were particularly strong for body
parts, and words for small objects tend to incorporate higher-pitched sounds.

Why this happens remains a mystery for now, though documenting the phenomenon is an important first
step. Likely it has something to do with the human mind or brain, our ways of interacting, or signals we
use when we learn or process language, says Christiansen, adding, Thats a key question for future
research.

REFERENCE:
http://bigthink.com/robby-berman/researchers-find-the-sounds-we-build-words-from-have-built-in-
meanings

6. How Sound Can Be an Ally or an Enemy of a Healthy Brain

A new technique for measuring our neuronal response to sound is yielding both good news and bad
news

Its so good to hear the sound of your voice. When talking to an old friend, its our natural response.
William Shakespeare reminds us in Loves Labours Lost that, A lover's ear will hear the lowest
sound.
Sounds have a deep impact on our emotions and offer a wide spectrum of influences, as they can be loud,
soft, interesting, annoying, important, distracting, soothing, infuriating.
Like electricity, gravity and air, sound is a powerful force. Yet, because it is invisible, we often remain
largely unaware of the powerful influence sound has on our lives. Still, we have tools to protect and
maximize its power.
A recent Centers for Disease Control study analyzing causes of noise-induced hearing loss, along with
other recent studies about noise pollution due to environmental projects such as fracking, or the effects of
loud city living on developing dementia, expose and remind us of the urgent and ongoing dangers of
noise.
But sound is also crucial to our brain development in a positive way. There is ample evidence that playing
an instrument has a positive impact on the developing brain. Speaking two languages, another form of
sound enrichment, is good for attentional skills and multitasking and may prevent the onset of dementia.
Despite the power of sound in our lives, sound has a certain inscrutability. Due in part to its fleeting
nature and its invisibility, we dont often stop to think about its impact on our brain. Its invisibility also
causes us to struggle to describe sounds in contrast to the richly descriptive language we have at our
disposal for the things we see.
Seen objects are tangible and persistent. In many cases, we can study them for as long as we like. Unless
it is a moving object or an ephemeral action, we can use our eyes to analyze an objects size, color,
texture, and shape, without having to rush.
We have concrete terms we can use to easily convey visual attributes using familiar language. If I used
the words small, yellow, fuzzy, and spherical to describe an object, you might guess that the object was a
tennis ball, or at least something that closely resembles a tennis ball.
A sound, by nature, though, is never static. It is always moving and so much tougher to describe. I might
describe a sound as loud, high-pitched, and dissonant, and while it gives you a global sense of the sound,
you wouldnt be able to begin to guess what I was describing. Is it a siren? A snatch of music? Squealing
brakes? A bird squawking?
Nevertheless, our ears and, in particular, our brains do an amazing job of making sense of sound. By some
measures, the auditory system is the most computationally intensive neural network. This is particularly
true in terms of timing.
No other sensory system, vision included, can compare to the speed at which the auditory system
processes the incoming soundscape. Much of this need for speed is due to the simple fact that sounds
change over time.
Consider speech. The smallest acoustic unit of speech is a phoneme. For instance, the word stream has
only one syllable, but it has five discrete phonemes. Change any one of them and the meaning is changed
(street) or lost (spream).
In the Auditory Neuroscience Lab at Northwestern University, we have discovered, with a few electrodes
and a few minutes, a way to capture the imprint that the sounds of our lives leaves on our nervous
systems. This window into the finely tuned, speedy, precise auditory system has enabled us to
demonstrate both the positive and negative impacts of our lives in sound.
Our newfound ability to capture these brainwavesthe brains reaction to soundshas taught us that
sound is separate from noise. The reaction to noise is a disorganized response. But the brain is so well
tuned to speech, for example that babies begin to make sense of speech well before they develop
language. They learn that certain sound combinations work or dont work in their language within a
couple minutes of exposure. The brainwave response to speech is so well-structured that you can
actually understand speech in the brainwave if it is played back.
Noise is more pernicious than an in-the-moment nuisance. Even a modest level of noise, over a long
enough period of time (e.g. beeping garbage trucks, hair dryers, air conditioners), can cause damage to the
brain networks that extract meaning from sound. Many of us dont even realize our brains are being
blunted and our thinking impeded by this invisible force.
It seems most everyone is aware of the dangers that loud sounds can inflict on our ears. Yet long term
exposure to sounds that are not loud enough for us to give them a second thought can cause permanent
damage to the hearing brain. This is different from what we typically think of as hearing loss, which
involves damage to the hair cells in the cochlea by noise, aging and certain drugs. Instead, its a disruption
of some of the connections between the hair cells and the higher brain areas, which has been
demonstrated in research on lab animals. So you might pass a hearing test, because the hair cells are still
working, and some of the connections are still intact. Some of the connections that carry important
information like speech, however, are missing
But we have available protections.
Ear protection such as the earplugs musicians use while on stage can stave off harm. The detriment of
white-noise generators and apps probably outweighs any benefits. If possible, choose where you live
wisely, based on noise levels. The constant low-level meaningless noise from the nearby highway or
airport is chipping away at your brains ability to make sense of meaningful sounds like speech, and may
hasten cognitive decline in old age.
Much as the presence of meaningless noise can cause problems, the absence of meaningful sound also
leaves a mark on the ability to process sound. But there are distinct ways to tone and hone your listening
brain.
You can learn a second language. The challenge of juggling two languages bolsters the auditory system
and redounds to improvements in cognitive functions such as attention.
Another way to exercise your auditory brain is to play a musical instrument. This has a huge payoff
cognitively and emotionally for children and adults alike. A few years of playing an instrument while in
school sharpens the auditory system and can benefit language development in children. And this benefit
lasts a lifetime.
In my laboratory, when I see a computer screen displaying someones brainwave, I can usually guess
whether they are a musician or not based on the rich, clean quality of the musicians brain signature.
At the other end of the spectrum, my lab works with children who grow up in noisy environments and
receive little linguistic enrichment. And, sadly, I can spot that signature too. Yes, sound, for better or
worse, is that powerful.

REFERENCE:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/how-sound-can-be-an-ally-or-an-enemy-of-a-healthy-
brain/

7. Neuroscientists' study sheds light on how words are represented in the brain
Date:
July 20, 2016
Source:
University of Pittsburgh
Summary:
Using direct neural recordings from the visual word form area, researchers were able to see words that
patients read as the patients read them.

Reading is a relatively modern and uniquely human skill. For this reason, visual word recognition has
been a puzzle for neuroscientists because the neural systems responsible for reading could not have
evolved for this purpose. "The existence of brain regions dedicated to reading has been fiercely debated
for almost 200 years," said Avniel Ghuman, an assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh
Department of Neurological Surgery. "Wernicke, Dejerine, and Charcot, among the most important and
influential neurologists and neuroscientists of the 19th century, debated whether or not there was a visual
center for words in the brain."

In recent years, much of this debate has centered on the left mid-fusiform gyrus, which some call the
visual word form area. A recent study by Pitt neuroscience researchers addresses this debate and sheds
light on our understanding of the neurobiology of reading.
In a study to be published July 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ghuman,
Elizabeth Hirshorn of Pitt's Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC), and colleagues from
the Department of Psychology and Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition used direct neural recordings
and brain stimulation to study the role of the visual word form area in reading in four epileptic patients.
The patients chose surgical treatment for their drug-resistant epilepsy and volunteered to participate in the
research study. As part of the surgical treatment, neurosurgeons implanted electrodes in the patients'
visual word form area, providing an unprecedented opportunity to understand how the brain recognizes
printed words.

First, painless electrical brain stimulation was used through the electrodes to disrupt the normal
functioning of the visual word form area, which adversely affected the patients' ability to read words. One
patient dramatically misperceived letters, and another felt that there were words and parts of words
present that were not in what she was reading. Stimulation to this region did not disrupt their ability to
name objects or faces. A brief video of the stimulation can be seen here: https://youtu.be/N4FYG7UW-
vM.

In addition to stimulating through these electrodes, the activity from the area was recorded while the
patients read words. Using techniques from machine learning to analyze the brain activity that evolved
over a few hundred milliseconds from this region, the researchers could tell what word a patient was
reading at a particular moment. This suggests that neural activity in the area codes knowledge about
learned visual words that can be used to discriminate even words that are only one letter different from
one another (for example, "hint" and "lint").

"This study shows that the visual word form area is exquisitely tuned to the fine details of written words
and that this area plays a critical role in refining the brain's representation of what we are reading. The
disrupted word and letter perception seen with stimulation provides direct evidence that the visual word
form area plays a dedicated role in skilled reading," said Hirshorn. "These results also have important
implications for understanding and treating reading disorders. The activity in the visual word form area,
along with its interactions with other brain areas involved in language processing, could be a marker for
proficient reading. Having a better understanding of this neural system could be critical for diagnosing
reading disorders and developing targeted therapies."

"It is exciting that with modern brain-recording techniques and advanced analysis methods, we are finally
able to start answering questions about the brain and the mind that people have asked for centuries and
contribute to our understanding of reading disorders," said Ghuman.

REFERENCE:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160720125521.html

8. Reading The Reading Mind

A study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University has shed new light
on the critical issue of how the human brain recognizes and reads words.

Their findings provide strong evidence for the existence of a specific area of the brain responsible for the
visual representation of words, a still hotly-debated issue in the field. More remarkably, the researchers
were also able to electronically read out individual words being read by neurosurgery patients with
electrodes implanted in their brains for treatment of epilepsy.

Reading is a uniquely human skill and visual word recognition a particular conundrum for neuroscientists.
Because it is such a relatively recent development in historical terms, the neural systems responsible for
reading simply could not have evolved for this purpose. Instead, any specialization for reading must have
occurred through learning and the adaptation of existing centers in the brain.

THE VISUAL WORD FORM AREA DEBATE

Whether or not a reading-specific brain region even exists has been fiercely debated by scientists for more
than a century, with most of the debate revolving around a small area near the back of the brain in the left
mid-fusiform gyrus, which some researchers call the visual word form area.

This debate goes back at least as far back as the 19th century work of French neurologists Jean-Martin
Charcot and Joseph-Jules Dejerine, and German psychiatrist and neuropathologist Carl Wernicke.

Charcot and Dejerine believed in the existence of a center for the visual memory of words, while
Wernicke firmly rejected the notion, proposing instead that reading only necessitates visual
representations of individual letters that feed forward into the language system.

More recently, researchers have disagreed about whether there is a visual word form system in the brain
that represents the visual forms of letter combinations, pieces of words (like phonemes and morphemes)
and whole words.

Those on one of side have argued that the brain possesses a visual word form area that is a major,
reproducible site of orthographic knowledge, while those on the other disavow any need for such
reading-specific visual specialization in the brain, arguing instead for neurons that are general purpose
analyzers of visual forms.

ELECTRICAL BRAIN STIMULATION

In this study, the role of this area in reading was studied using electrodes implanted in the brains of
patients undergoing surgical treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy. The electrodes were surgically
implanted in the left fusiform gyrus and other brain regions, and were used to continuously monitor the
patients brain activity for one to two weeks. Physicians were hoping to precisely localize the
dysfunctional tissue causing their epileptic seizures so it could be excised at the same time as the
electrodes were removed.

Because this process provided an unprecedented opportunity to understand how the brain recognizes
printed words, several patients agreed to participate in a study led by senior author Dr. Avniel S. Ghuman,
Director of MEG research and the Laboratory of Cognitive Neurodynamics at the University of
Pittsburgh, and co-first authors Dr. Elizabeth A. Hirshorn of the University of Pittsburghs Learning
Research and Development Center and Yuanning Li, a Ph.D. candidate in the Program in Neural
Computation, a joint program of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.

In the first step, mild electrical brain stimulation was applied to different parts of the brain through the
electrodes while patients read words and letters. This caused the brain tissue near the electrodes to
temporarily act abnormally, and disrupted the normal functioning of the stimulated area.

When stimulation was delivered to the target area in the fusiform gyrus, patients ability to read words
was profoundly disturbed, even though both patients were otherwise proficient readers. One patient
reported thinking about two different words at the same time, and trying to combine them, even though
only one word illegal was on the screen.
In another case, the same patient reported thinking that there was an n in the word message. The
effects were even more dramatic in a second patient who completely misperceived letters. When the letter
X was displayed on-screen, he reported seeing A, and when the letter C was on-screen, he
confidently reported seeing the letters F and then H. A video of this can be seen below.

However, when stimulation was delivered to other parts of the brain, both patients could name words and
letters without difficulty. Moreover, stimulation to the fusiform region did not affect their ability to
identify and name pictures and faces.

ESTIMATING WORD WAVEFORMS

In the second part of the study, patients were asked to read words while activity from the brain area was
recorded through the electrodes.

Using sophisticated analysis techniques for pattern recognition, the researchers were actually able to
identify which specific word a patient was reading at a particular moment in time just by looking at the
shape of the waveform. This suggests that neural activity in the area encodes learned visual words in a
way that can be used to discriminate even visually similar words from one another.

Yes, we can essentially tell the difference between different words by looking at the waveform, said Dr.
Avniel Ghuman, But I would like to emphasize that while our accuracy is substantially greater than a
random guess, its not near 100% at the moment. This allows us to say with confidence that the
information about individual words is present in this brain area, but I dont want to give the impression
we could or would spy on peoples thoughts with any great accuracy.

Dr. Ghuman and his colleagues also discovered that there were two critical windows of time for word
processing during which affected how and when they could read individual words.

Specifically, during brain activity that arose from 100 to 250 milliseconds after the subjects saw a word ,
we could distinguish between words that were completely different, like hint and dome, but not words
that were very similar, like hint and lint, he explained.

However, in the time window right after that, about 300 to 500 milliseconds, we were able to distinguish
between words just one letter different, like hint and lint. This means that the fusiform gyrus plays a
critical role in refining the neural representation of what we are reading over hundreds of milliseconds.

Taken together, the researchers say, the results of this study provide strong evidence that an area of the left
fusiform gyrus is shaped by reading experience and plays a critical role in the accurate recognition of
printed words. These results have important implications for our understanding of the neurobiological
basis of many reading disorders and suggests a potential neural target for reading disorder therapies.

Moreover, according to Dr. Ghuman, these results help resolve the great debate about whether or not the
brain has reading-specific areas that has raged for over a century.

The fact that the activity in the left mid-fusiform gyrus codes for individual words, and that disrupting
this area causes profoundly disturbed word recognition, while leaving the ability to recognize non-word
objects relatively intact, provides some of the strongest evidence to date that this area is shaped by
reading experience and becomes dedicated to the accurate recognition of printed words, he said.

REFERENCE:
http://reliawire.com/reading-mind/
9. Tell Me What Languages You Know and Ill Tell You How You Read

Summary: Findings could have positive implications for education and teaching bilingual children how to
read.

Source: FECYT.

The way bilingual people read is conditioned by the languages they speak. This is the main conclusion
reached by researchers at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) after reviewing
the existing scientific literature and comparing this information to the findings of studies at their own
centre.

The scientists found that the languages spoken by bilingual people (when they learned to read in two
languages at the same time) affect their reading strategies and even the cognitive foundations that form
the basis for the capacity to read. This discovery could have implications for clinical and education
practice.

Monolingual speakers of transparent languages where letters are pronounced the same independently
of the word they are included in, such as Basque or Spanish have a greater tendency to use analytical
reading strategies, where they read words in parts, Sinc was told by Marie Lallier, one of the authors of
the article.

On the other hand, speakers of opaque languages, where the sounds of letters differ depending on the
word (for example English or French) are more likely to use a global reading strategy. In other words,
they tend to read whole words to understand their meaning.

Nonetheless, the BCBL researchers have observed that bilingual people who learn to read two languages
at the same time do not read the same way as monolingual speakers; rather, they follow a different pattern
which had not previously been described.

According to the literature review, recently published in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, a
contamination effect takes place between the two reading strategies in speakers of two languages.
Therefore, a person learning to read in Spanish and in English will have a greater tendency towards a
global strategy, even when reading in Spanish, than a monolingual Spanish speaker. This effect is caused
by the influence of the second language.

When reading in English, on the contrary, they will tend towards a more analytical strategy (reading by
parts) than monolingual English speakers, due to contagion from Spanish. The brains of bilingual
people adjusts itself in accordance with what they learn, applying the strategies needed to read in one
language to their reading in the other language, Lallier adds.

Associated cognitive processes

The researchers had previously described the principal strategies used by monolingual speakers of various
languages. However, the way reading strategies are modified in bilingual people when they learn to read
in two languages had never before been identified.

The scientists at the San Sebastian centre believe that learning to read in two languages with different
characteristics than the mother tongue also causes a change in the cognitive processes that are the basis of
reading acquisition, such as visual attention or auditory phonological processes.
 Image shows woman reading.
Learning to read in an opaque language (such as English or French) reinforces our capacity to rapidly
process many visual elements, because whole words must be deciphered to achieve fluent reading in these
languages. NeuroscienceNews.com image is for illustrative purposes only.
In other words, learning to read in an opaque language (such as English or French) reinforces our capacity
to rapidly process many visual elements, because whole words must be deciphered to achieve fluent
reading in these languages.

As transparent languages have a much greater focus on the letter-sound correspondence, learning to read
in these languages is though to improve our sensitivity in perceiving the sounds of the language.

Application in diagnosing dyslexia

The papers authors consider their findings to have implications at different levels. From an educational
standpoint, they allow better understanding of how bilingual populations learn to read and what type of
strategies are most advisable to help pupils learn based on the languages they know.

The new discovery could also help in the diagnosis and assessment of dyslexia and other problems with
reading. Language learning can not provoke more cases of dyslexia, as the disorder is usually caused by
neurogenetic factors. Our theory suggests that more language learning could make the symptoms more
visible, and vice versa. This depends on the combination of languages they are learning, Lallier explains.

The languages a child knows are therefore determinants for identifying potential disorders, as this
essential information would explain certain mistakes made when reading.

Our experience with languages modulates our capacity to read. This should be taken into account when
teaching bilingual children to read, and if any reading problems, such as dyslexia, should appear. We need
to establish specific scales for the diagnosis of dyslexia in bilingual people, because their circumstances
are different, the expert concludes.

REFERENCE:
http://neurosciencenews.com/language-reading-6628/

10. Filled Pauses and Gestures: Its Not a Coincidence

Though filled pauses and gestures frequently accompany speech, their function is not well understood.
We suggest that it may be helpful in furthering our knowledge o f these phenomena to examine their
relationship to each other. To this end, we carried out two studies examining whether they tend to occur
together, or to occur at separate times. Both faculty colloquium speakers" and undergraduate subjects
used filled pauses less frequently when they were gesturing than when they were not gesturing. This effect
held for 30 out o f 31 subjects. We suggest that detailed theories may be premature, but speculate that
gestures may be an indication that the speech production apparatus has completed its search for the next
word, phrase or idea and is ready to continue.

When people talk, no matter what the content or purpose of their speech, they tend to do two
things. They wave their arms about and they say "urn." In studies of the speech mannerisms of
lecturers in a variety of academic disciplines (Schachter, Christenfeld, Ravina, & Bilous, 1990), we
noticed what appeared to be a consistent dissociation between these two phenomena. It was our
observation that lecturers rarely seemed to use filled pauses (the term for such interruptions in the
flow of speech as "uh," "ah," "'er," and " u m " ) while gesturing. It is the purpose of

We thank Bernard Ravina, Julie Odegard, and Kathrin Wanne r for their help with the data collection
and Barbara Landau and Robert Krauss for comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. This
research was supported by a grant to Stanley Schachter, made for other purposes, from the Russell Sage
Foundation .
i Columbia University.
2 Address all correspondence to Nicholas Christenfeld, Department of Psychology, Co-lumbia
University, 406 Schermerhorn Hall, New York, New York, 10027.
2 Christenfeld, Schachter, and Bilous

the present studies to examine this relationship and, after presenting the evidence, to speculate briefly on
the implications of our findings for theories of gesture and speech disfluency.
" U m s " and gestures share a somewhat nebulous relationship with verbal output. It is fairly clear
that they are both products of the general speech production system, since they both are obviously related
to verbal
output (McNeill, 1985; Rochester, 1973). However, it is not clear for either whether they serve a role in
helping the listener understand the message or in helping the speaker produce it, or whether they are
simply functionless byproducts of the speech apparatus. Except in the case of a few very specific tasks
(Birdwhistell, 1970), gestures do not seem to help the receiver of a message understand it better (Krauss,
Apple, Mor-encey, Wenzel, & Winton, 1981). Furthermore, people often gesture when they are speaking
on the telephone or over an intercom, when the gestures cannot possibly be of use to the listener (Cohen,
1977). In turn, there is no real evidence that gestures help the speaker formulate the message. The basic
questions about why people gesture have not been answered.

As to filled pauses, a variety of research has suggested that " u r n s " are indications of time out
while the speech production apparatus searches for the next word, phrase, or idea (Goldman-Eisler, 1968;
Rochester, 1973). This suggests that " u r n s " have a purpose for the speaker as a means of stalling for
time to think. However, that end could just as well be served with silent pauses, and in the research
literature, there are no hypotheses of which we know to account for the use of filled rather than silent
pauses. As far as the listener goes, there are no indications that
" u m s " serve any particular function. There is some evidence, in both field studies and experiments, that
listeners are almost entirely insensitive to the use of "'urns" and that their impressions of both the speaker
and the message are unaffected by the frequency with which filled pauses
are used (Schachter, Christenfeld, & Rodstein, 1990). Finally, it has been suggested that "'urns" serve a
floor-keeping function (Maclay & Osgood, 1959), that is, they indicate to a listener that the speaker has
more to say. Perhaps this is so in conversation, but in formal lectures, where there is no possibility of
interruption, filled pauses are used with astonishing frequency. 3

Because the function of " u r n s " and gestures is not clear, and they are both such common
companions of speech, it may provide some

3 A s can b e derive d fro m Table I, colloquiu m speakers average 3 . 17 " u m s " per minut e during a 5 0 - r a i n
lecture .
Filled Pauses and Gestures 3

insight into the nature of these phenomena to examine their relationship to each other. Many people have
looked at the relationship between gestures and verbal output; however, it is hard to make a clear
prediction about the relationship between filled pauses and gestures from this work because different
researchers have focused on different types of move-ments and disfluencies. Schegloff (1984) and a
number of others (But-terworth and Beattie, 1978; Krauss and Morrel-Samuels, 1988) have found that
gestures seem slightly and consistently to precede their lexical affiliates. These researchers suggest that
this may be because gestures are easier to produce since they are selected from a smaller repertoire.
Butterworth and Goldman-Eisler's (1979) work on the timing of gestures and pauses was concerned
specifically with the onset of what they term speech-focused movements (SFMs) and silent pauses. They
found that SFMs are as likely to begin during a silent pause as during the act of speaking. Whether this is
the case for filled pauses one cannot say, for while some people have found similarities between filled
and silent pauses (Beattie & Butterworth, 1979), others have not. For ex-ample, in Mahl's extensive work
on the effects of anxiety (reviewed in Mahl, 1987), he has found that most disfluencies increase with
anxiety, but that there is consistently no effect on the rate of filled pauses. In fact, filled pauses proved so
resistant to these manipulations that he threw them out of his index of speech disturbances. Other
researchers have tried a number of manipulations that affect silent pauses but not filled pauses (Greene &
Lindsey, 1989) or filled pauses but not silent pauses (Vrolijk, 1974). Butterworth and Goldman-Eisler
were concerned only with silent pauses and only with the onset of SFMs. It is difficult, there-fore, to
extend their results to make a prediction about the co-occurrence of filled pauses and gestures.

Ragsdale and Silvia (1982) also examined the temporal relation of body movements and speech
disturbances, but they excluded filled pauses from their measure, and included much more general
movements, such as posture shifts and movement of the feet. They did find a fairly strong association of
movements and speech errors, with the movement coming just before or simultaneously with the
disfluency. Dittman and Llewellyn (1969) reported a similar finding, but they were concerned with the
overlap of gestures and what they termed starts, the beginning of a phonemic clause, a silent pause, or a
filled pause. Hadar, Steiner, and Rose (1984) found that movements instead tend to follow disfluencies,
but their data were based only on movements of the head, and they were only interested in silent pauses
and general repetitions.

Because the existing literature does not explore the temporal rela-
4 Christenfeld, Schachter, and Bilous

tionship between filled pauses and hand gestures, and because we saw indications of such a relationship,
we conducted two studies to address the issue directly.

S T U D Y 1: O B S E R V A T I O N O F F O R M A L T A L K S

The first study involved systematic observation of 18 successive speakers at Columbia University's
Psychology Colloquium. This is a biweekly affair in which outside speakers present their most recent re-
search and thinking to the faculty and graduate students of the psychology department as well as to any
interested outsiders. Typically, the audience consists of some 40 - 60 people and the talk takes roughly
one hour.
Two observers sitting toward the back of the room systematically noted the speakers' gesturing
behavior and tallied their use of filled pauses. One of the observers -- the gesture coder -- recorded the
amount of time each speaker spent gesturing. Pointing, scratching, and fiddling with clothes (deictics and
self-manipulations) were not counted as ges-tures. Self-manipulations were not counted, since they seem
fairly clearly not to be related to speaking (this distinction is discussed in Freedman, 1972), and pointing
was not included since it seemed to be simply a function of the amount of data and type of data
presentation the speaker chose. If, for example, the speaker used slides, he or she was likely to point to
the portion of the figure or table under discussion. All other hand-arm movements were counted as
gestures. This first observer, using a stopwatch held in one hand, simply kept a cumulative record of the
time that each speaker spent gesturing, starting the watch when the speak-er's hands started moving and
stopping it when they returned to a rest position. This observer also used a continuous hand signal to
indicate whether or not the subject was gesturing. This was a simple thumb up or thumb down signal with
the non-stopwatch hand.

The second observer -- the " u m " coder -- kep t track of filled pauses. He listened to the talk and,
relying on the hand signal from the first observer, recorded whether or not each " u m ' " occurred during
a gesture. If he heard an "'urn,'" and the gesture observer's thumb was up, he tallied it as an " u r n " while
gesturing, and if the thumb was down, as an " u m " while not gesturing. The second observer also kept track of
the length of the talk, which was simply the elapsed time from the start to the end of the talk, excluding questions
from the floor, film clips, and other
Filled Pause s an d Gesture s 5

external impediments to speech. The lecturer was unaware that these observations were being made.
For seven of the colloquia, we had a second observer record ges-tures. Before coding any of the
colloquia, these gesture coders had prac-ticed coding for many hours. They had coded 11 previous
colloquia, as well as practiced their coding skills on videotapes of people speaking. With these
videotapes, the coders practiced determining when gestures started and stopped, and also practiced
indicating this with the thumb signal. They were trained to consider a gesture as starting when the hands
left a neutral, resting position--hanging at the speaker's sides, folded in his or her lap etc . -- and to
consider it over when the hands returned to a resting position. This is not a simple matter, since it requires
making rapid decisions about whether a gesture is starting, or if the speaker is simply adjusting clothing,
scratching, or pointing at some specific object. However, with practice these determinations can be made
reliably.

To assess the reliability, we used the intraclass correlation, which is based on the analysis of
variance, to arrive at an estimate of the part of the measurement that is attributable to true differences
between sub-jects and the part that is due to error. Unlike the Pearson correlation coefficient, this measure
is directly interpretable as the percent of vari-ance attributable to the true differences between subjects.
[See Lord & Novick (1968) and Fleiss (1986) for a more extensive discussion of this procedure.] For the
seven colloquia in this study for which we had a second gesture coder also record the percent of time that
the speaker spent gesturing, the reliability was R = .99.

The "'urn'" coder similarly had extensive experience at his job. He had coded 20 previous colloquia,
and hours of other speech, as well as practicing the system with one of the gesture coders on the
videotapes. He was trained to regard any sound such as "'urn,'" " e r , " " u h , " "'ah,'" and the like as a
filled pause, but to exclude any sound that formed part of a word, however garbled or incomplete. (This
task soon became sec-ond nature, and our coder had to make a special effort to stop coding these filled
pauses when off duty.) The only real ambiguity occurred between the indefinite article a and a filled
pause, but almost always this could be resolved by paying some attention to the context. If a speaker said
" u r n " several times in succession, these were each counted as in-dividual occurrences of a filled pause.
Although none of the colloquia in the present study was coded by more than one "urn'" counter, 10
previous ones were. For these, the reliability of the rate of "urns'" per minute was calculated as R = .99.
This reliability, although almost
6 Christenfeld, Schaehter, and Bilous

disturbingly high, is in line with the reliability for similar codings re-ported by Feldstein, Brenner
and Jaffe (1963), Mahl (1987), and Panek and Martin (1959). This kind of reliability is, in fact, not
hard to achieve if you are willing to sacrifice all understanding of what speakers are actually
saying.
The speakers spoke for an average of 54 min, and gestured for 20% of the time that they were
speaking. They averaged 3.17 "urns" per minute during the talk.
These data, then, provide measures of the amount of time each speaker spent gesturing. In
addition, these data indicate how many "urns" the speaker used while gesturing, and how many
while not gesturing. One can then compute the average number of "urns" used per minute while
gesturing, and while not gesturing. If the two phenomena are unrelated, these two rates should be
equal. If "urns" and gestures tend to occur together, the rate of "urns" while gesturing should be
higher than the rate while not gesturing, and if they tend to occur separately, the rate should be
lower while gesturing. The last two columns of Table I present the relevant data. The average
subject used only 1.33 "urns"

Table I. " U m " Rates While Gesturing and Not Gesturing for Colloquium Speakers
ml i
Minutes Minutes Total "Ums"/min "'Ums"/min
not
Subject talking gesturing "urns" gesturing gesturing
1 45.8 5 . 2 131 1.45 3.04
2 53 . 2 17.7 118 0 . 57 3.04
3 53 . 2 7.9 141 0.76 3.05
4 63.0 4 . 6 204 1.09 3.41
5 44 . 0 1.8 182 1.14 4.27
6 45 . 0 2.6 181 1.14 4.20
7 50 . 6 13.4 209 0.90 5.29
8 53.8 9.8 55 0.36 1.17
9 61.1 11.0 160 2.45 2.65
10 55 . 0 11.6 591 3.89 12.57
11 56 . 4 7.3 132 0.54 2.61
12 59 . 6 10.3 75 0.19 1.48
13 75 . 0 16.7 172 0 . 72 2.74
14 48 . 2 12.9 135 2.39 2.95
15 59 . 2 18.1 181 1.99 3.53
16 50.0 15.7 230 2.67 5 . 49
17 42 . 4 13.7 92 1.24 2.61
18 54 . 0 13 . 8 9.__6.6 0.5.1 2.2!
Average 53 . 9 10.8 171 1.33 3.68
Filled P a u s e s a n d G e s t u r e s 7

per minute while gesturing, and 3.68 " u m s " per minute when not ges-turing. Every one of the 18
speakers had a lower "urn'" rate while gesturing. The two rates are significantly different, with a paired
t(17) = 5.32 with p < .0001.

Although these findings are remarkably strong and consistent, there is always the possibility that
some sampling or methodological artifact may be responsible for these data. First, this is a narrowly
selected population of subjects, for they are almost all practiced speakers who make their living lecturing
at universities. Second, there is a possibility of inadvertent bias in the observations, for the observers
could both hear and see the speakers since there was no discreet way that we could manage to have the
observer of filled pauses sit with his back to the speaker. In order to examine the phenomenon with other
sorts of subjects in a context where we could rule out some of the possible sources of bias, we analyzed
videotapes that had been made in an earlier experiment 4 (Krauss & Morrel-Samuels, 1988). In addition,
two pairs of observers were used in order to check on the reliability of the observation tech-niques.

S T U D Y 2: O B S E R V A T I O N S O F U N D E R G R A D U A T E S P E A K E R S

In this study, undergraduate subjects were simply asked to describe various pictures and sounds to a
confederate. Thirteen video tapes made of these subjects were coded for gestures and filled pauses. The
obser-vation techniques were the same as in the colloquium study except that the observer of filled
pauses sat with his back to the monitor so that, using earphones, he could hear the speech but not see the
videotaped subjects, while the observer of gestures faced the screen and systemati-cally timed and
signaled gestures but, lacking earphones, could not hear what was said.

The data for the 13 subjects are given in Table II, which, for each subject, presents the average for
the two pairs of coders. The subjects spoke for an average of 11.4 min, and spent 33% of that time
gesturing. In 12 of the 13 cases the rate of " u r n s " was lower while gesturing. On average, subjects
used 3.00 " u m s ' " per minute while they were gesturing

4 We are grateful to Dr. Krauss for giving us access to his tapes. His research was supported in part by
National Science Foundation grant BNS - 8616131 .
8 Christenfeld, Sehachter, and Bilous

Tabl e II . " U r n " Rates While Gesturing and Not Gesturing for Undergraduate Subjects
i
Minutes Minutes Total "Ums"/min "Ums"/min
Subjec not
t talking gesturing "urns" gesturing gesturing
1 8.3 1.5 36.0 2.27 4.82
2 10.6 2.8 40.0 3.00 4.03
3 12.9 6.5 27.5 1.23 3.06
4 11.3 4.3 27.0 1.52 2.94
5 15.4 7.9 48.5 2.96 3.35
6 14.3 3.7 178.0 8.60 13.72
7 10.5 1.7 51.0 7.81 4.31
8 6.3 1.6 18.5 0.31 3.80
9 13.4 7.0 66.0 4.45 5.42
10 18.5 3.4 111.0 3.53 6.58
11 15.6 7.2 32.0 1.88 2.20
12 5.9 0.1 8.0 0.00 1.39
13 5.1 2.._~1 15.5 1.4,5 .4..11
Averag
e 11.4 3.8 50.7 3.00 4.59

and 4 . 59 " u m s " per minut e whil e they w e r e not gesturing . This is significantly different, with t(12)
= 2 . 81 , p < .02.
For these data, m o r e extensive reliability estimates could be c o m - puted . A g a i n , for the
percent o f time spent gesturing, the reliability w a s
R = .99. For the rate o f " u r n s " per minut e it w a s also R = .99. For the rate o f " u r n s " per minut e
whil e the s p e a k e r w a s gesturing, c o m p a r i n g the two pairs o f coders produce d a reliability o f
R = .95. For the rate whil e the s p e a k e r w a s not gesturing, the reliability w a s R = .99. It should be b
o r n e in min d that these last reliabilities depend on the gesture coders agreeing on w h e n the speake r w
a s gesturing, the "'urn" coders
agreeing on w h e n the speake r said " u m , " and also on pickin g up the signal correctly f r o m the
gesture coders . In an y case, it is almos t exces - sively clear that this can b e m e a s u r e d reliably .
Once again, w e hasten to point out that our coders had spent well o v e r 100 hours honing their codin g
skills.

DISCUSSION

T a k e n together, these studies leave little doubt that peopl e tend to say " ' u m " less frequently
while they are gesturing . O f the 31 subjects,
30 s h o w e d this trend. F u r t h e r m o r e , the effect existed for two different s p e a k i n g tasks, for experience
d and inexperience d speakers , and for a
Filled Pauses and Gestures 9

large range of ages. The findings indicate that " u r n s " and gestures are systematically, and not
randomly, distributed in the flow of speech.
In spite of the strength of the finding, one cannot draw any firm conclusions about the two
phenomena and the nature of their relationship. Since the findings are based on correlational studies, one
must make assumptions about one of the factors in order to conclude anything about the other.

If we take as a fact that " u r n s " signal time out while there is an ongoing search for the next word
or phrase, then the present finding has implications for the placement of gestures. Since people tend not to
gesture while they are " u m m i n g , " gestures should be an indication that no search is in progress.
Perhaps gestures are only initiated when a search has been successful. The gestures may be linked to
specific words, in which case they clearly cannot start until the word has been found, or it may be that
gestures are simply held in check until the verbal channel is ready to continue. In either case, we should
anticipate that pauses would tend to precede gestures immediately.

This idea of gestures is very different from the common-sense idea that people grope for words by
waving their hands. If this were the case, then gestures, at least part of the time, should be a sign that a
search is underway. One might then expect that, sharing the same cause, gestures and " u r n s " would
tend to co-occur. The fact that they do not suggests, but by no means proves, that gestures are not often
used to grope for words.

However, it seems to us that our understanding of gestures is still so primitive that we are loathe to
linger over speculation about the the-oretical implications of these findings. The facts are firmly
established. Perhaps they will be useful in furthering our eventual understanding of filled pauses and
gestures.

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