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This study investigates the temporal dynamics of sign production and how particular aspects of the signed modality influence the early stages of lexical access. To that end, we explored the electrophysiological correlates associated to sign frequency and iconicity in a picture signing task in a group of bimodal bilinguals. Moreover, a subset of the same participants was tested in the same task but naming the pictures instead. Our results revealed that both frequency and iconicity influenced lexical access in sign production. At the ERP level, iconicity effects originated very early in the course of signing (while absent in the spoken modality), suggesting a stronger activation of the semantic properties for iconic signs. Moreover, frequency effects were modulated by iconicity, suggesting that lexical access in signed language is determined by the iconic properties of the signs. These results support the idea that lexical access is sensitive to the same phenomena in word and sign production, but its time-course is modulated by particular aspects of the modality in which a lexical item will be finally articulated. ; This research was supported by two grants from the Spanish Government, PSI2011-23033 and CONSOLIDER-INGENIO2010 CSD2007-00048, one grant from the Catalan Government, SGR 2009-1521, and from the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013 Cooperation grant agreement no. 613465-AThEME). CB was supported by a post-doctoral fellowship JCI-2010-06504 from the Spanish Government and now is supported by the People Program (Marie Curie Actions, FP7-PEOPLE 2014-2016) under REA agreement no. 623845.

Word reduction refers to how predictable words are shortened in features such as duration, intensity, or pitch. However, its origin is still unclear: Are words reduced because it is the second time that conceptual representations are activated, or because words are articulated twice? If word reduction is conceptually driven, it would be irrelevant whether the same referent is mentioned twice but using di erent words. However, if is articulatory, using di erent words for the same referent could prevent word reduction. In the present work, we use bilingualism to explore the conceptual or articulatory origin of word reduction in language production. Word reduction was compared in two conditions: a non-switch condition, where the two mentions of a referent were uttered in the same language, and a switch condition, where the referent was said in both languages. Dyads of participants completed collaborative maps in which words were uttered twice in Catalan or in Spanish, either repeating or switching the language between mentions. Words were equally reduced in duration, intensity, and pitch in non-switch and in switch conditions. Furthermore, the cognate status of words did not play any role. These findings support the theory that word reduction is conceptually driven ; This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Government (PSI2017-84539-P, Consolider Ingenio 2010 CSD2007-00012) and the Catalan government (2017 SGR 268). Sara Rodríguez-Cuadrado was supported by a predoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Government (FPU 2008-2012). Cristina Baus was supported by the Beatriu de Pinòs fellowship (AGAUR).

The aim of the present study was to explore the central (e.g., lexical processing) and peripheral processes (motor preparation and execution) underlying word production during typewriting. To do so, we tested non-professional typers in a picture typing task while continuously recording EEG. Participants were instructed to write (by means of a standard keyboard) the corresponding name for a given picture. The lexical frequency of the words was manipulated: half of the picture names were of high-frequency while the remaining were of low-frequency. Different measures were obtained: (1) first keystroke latency and (2) keystroke latency of the subsequent letters and duration of the word. Moreover, ERPs locked to the onset of the picture presentation were analyzed to explore the temporal course of word frequency in typewriting. The results showed an effect of word frequency for the first keystroke latency but not for the duration of the word or the speed to which letter were typed (interstroke intervals). The electrophysiological results showed the expected ERP frequency effect at posterior sites: amplitudes for low-frequency words were more positive than those for high-frequency words. However, relative to previous evidence in the spoken modality, the frequency effect appeared in a later time-window. These results demonstrate two marked differences in the processing dynamics underpinning typing compared to speaking: First, central processing dynamics between speaking and typing differ already in the manner that words are accessed; second, central processing differences in typing, unlike speaking, do not cascade to peripheral processes involved in response execution. ; This research was supported by two grants from the Spanish/nGovernment PSI2008-01091 and CONSOLIDER-INGENIO2010/nCSD2007-00048 and one grant from the Catalan Government/nSGR 2009-1521. Cristina Baus was supported by a post-doctoral/nfellowship JCI-2010-06504 from the Spanish Government./nKristof Strijkers was supported by the Intra-European Fellowship/n(FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF) of the Marie Curie Actions.

The present study examined whether processing words with affective connotations in a listener's native language may be modulated by accented speech. To address this question, we used the Event Related Potential (ERP) technique and recorded the cerebral activity of Spanish native listeners, who performed a semantic categorization task, while listening to positive, negative and neutral words produced in standard Spanish or in four foreign accents. The behavioral results yielded longer latencies for emotional than for neutral words in both native and foreign-accented speech, with no difference between positive and negative words. The electrophysiological results replicated previous findings from the emotional language literature, with the amplitude of the Late Positive Complex (LPC), associated with emotional language processing, being larger (more positive) for emotional than for neutral words at posterior scalp sites. Interestingly, foreign-accented speech was found to interfere with the processing of positive valence and go along with a negativity bias, possibly suggesting heightened attention to negative words. The manipulation employed in the present study provides an interesting perspective on the effects of accented speech on processing affective-laden information. It shows that higher order semantic processes that involve emotion-related aspects are sensitive to a speaker's accent. ; This research was supported by two grants from the Spanish Government, PSI2011-23033 and CONSOLIDER-INGENIO2010 CSD2007-00048, a grant from the Catalan Government, SGR 2009-1521, and a grant from the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013 Cooperation grant agreement n° 613465—AThEME). CB was supported by a post-doctoral fellowship JCI-2010-06504 from the Spanish Government and is now supported by the People Program (Marie Curie Actions, FP7-PEOPLE 2014-2016) under REA agreement n°623845.

The present study examined whether processing words with affective connotations in a listener's native language may be modulated by accented speech. To address this question, we used the Event Related Potential (ERP) technique and recorded the cerebral activity of Spanish native listeners, who performed a semantic categorization task, while listening to positive, negative and neutral words produced in standard Spanish or in four foreign accents. The behavioral results yielded longer latencies for emotional than for neutral words in both native and foreign-accented speech, with no difference between positive and negative words. The electrophysiological results replicated previous findings from the emotional language literature, with the amplitude of the Late Positive Complex (LPC), associated with emotional language processing, being larger (more positive) for emotional than for neutral words at posterior scalp sites. Interestingly, foreign-accented speech was found to interfere with the processing of positive valence and go along with a negativity bias, possibly suggesting heightened attention to negative words. The manipulation employed in the present study provides an interesting perspective on the effects of accented speech on processing affective-laden information. It shows that higher order semantic processes that involve emotion-related aspects are sensitive to a speaker's accent. ; This research was supported by two grants from the Spanish Government, PSI2011-23033 and CONSOLIDER-INGENIO2010 CSD2007-00048, a grant from the Catalan Government, SGR 2009-1521, and a grant from the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013 Cooperation grant agreement n° 613465—AThEME). CB was supported by a post-doctoral fellowship JCI-2010-06504 from the Spanish Government and is now supported by the People Program (Marie Curie Actions, FP7-PEOPLE 2014-2016) under REA agreement n°623845.

The information we obtain from how speakers sound—for example their accent—affects how we interpret the messages they convey. A clear example is foreign accented speech, where reduced intelligibility and speaker's social categorization (out-group member) affect memory and the credibility of the message (e.g., less trustworthiness). In the present study, we go one step further and ask whether evaluations of messages are also affected by regional accents—accents from a different region than the listener. In the current study, we report results from three experiments on immediate memory recognition and immediate credibility assessments as well as the illusory truth effect. These revealed no differences between messages conveyed in local—from the same region as the participant—and regional accents—from native speakers of a different country than the participants. Our results suggest that when the accent of a speaker has high intelligibility, social categorization by accent does not seem to negatively affect how we treat the speakers' messages. ; CF is now supported by a MINECO predoctoral grant for predoctoral researchers from the Spanish government (BES-2016-077169). AC was supported by two grants from the Spanish Government, PSI2011-23033, PSI2014-52181-P, a grant from the Catalan Government (AGAUR SGR 268), and a grant from the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013 Cooperation grant agreement nº 613465 - AThEME). CB was supported by the People Program (Marie Curie Actions, FP7-PEOPLE 2014–2016) under REA agreement n°623845 and now is supported by the program Beatriu de Pinòs from the Catalan Government.

Word reduction refers to how predictable words are shortened in features such as duration, intensity, or pitch. However, its origin is still unclear: Are words reduced because it is the second time that conceptual representations are activated, or because words are articulated twice? If word reduction is conceptually driven, it would be irrelevant whether the same referent is mentioned twice but using different words. However, if is articulatory, using different words for the same referent could prevent word reduction. In the present work, we use bilingualism to explore the conceptual or articulatory origin of word reduction in language production. Word reduction was compared in two conditions: a non-switch condition, where the two mentions of a referent were uttered in the same language, and a switch condition, where the referent was said in both languages. Dyads of participants completed collaborative maps in which words were uttered twice in Catalan or in Spanish, either repeating or switching the language between mentions. Words were equally reduced in duration, intensity, and pitch in non-switch and in switch conditions. Furthermore, the cognate status of words did not play any role. These findings support the theory that word reduction is conceptually driven. ; This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Government (PSI2017-84539-P, Consolider Ingenio 2010 CSD2007-00012) and the Catalan government (2017 SGR 268). Sara Rodríguez-Cuadrado was supported by a predoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Government (FPU 2008-2012). Cristina Baus was supported by the Beatriu de Pinòs fellowship (AGAUR).

We explore the properties of foreigner talk through word reduction. Word reduction signals that the speaker is referring to the same entity as previously and should be preserved for foreigner talk. However, it leads to intelligibility loss, which works against foreigner talk. Pairs of speakers engaged in a task where native speakers talked either to a native or non-native listener. Natives talking to non-natives performed foreigner talk for duration and intensity. Duration and intensity were reduced for native and non-native listeners equally. These results suggest that word reduction is insensitive to communicative adjustments in the context of foreign talk. ; This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Government (PSI2011-23033, Consolider Ingenio 2010 CSD2007-00012) and the Catalan government (Consolidat SGR 2009-1521). Sara RodríguezCuadrado was supported by a predoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Government (FPU 2008–2012). Cristina Baus was supported by the People Program (Marie Curie Actions, FP7- PEOPLE 2014–2016) under REA agreement n° 623845.We would like to thank Sumeer Chadha, Joanna Corey and Carlos Romero-Rivas for their assistance during data recruitment and manuscript elaboration.

Professor Albert Costa (1970-2018) was one of the most influential scholars in the fields of psycholinguistics and bilingualism. This book provides a faithful look at the most relevant lines of research in which he worked during his academic career. Written by some of his close collaborators and friends, the book presents a coherent summary of the most relevant psycholinguistic theories on language processing and bilingualism, including critical reviews to current models of lexical access, the representation of cognate words, neurolinguistic models of bilingualism, cross-linguistic effects in bimodal bilinguals (sign language), prediction processes and linguistic alignment in bilinguals, the influence of foreign-language effects in social cognition and the effects of bilingualism in emotion and decision making processing. This volume is a tribute to Prof. Costa and his work, and is born from a deep love and respect for his way of approaching the science of multilingualism from a psycholinguistic perspective.

This paper investigates whether the semantic and phonological levels in speech production are specific to spoken languages or universal across modalities. We examined semantic and phonological effects during Catalan Signed Language (LSC: Llengua de Signes Catalana) production using an adaptation of the picture–word interference task: native and non-native signers were asked to sign picture names while ignoring signs produced in the background. The results showed semantic interference effects for semantically related distractor signs and phonological facilitation effects when target signs and distractor signs shared either Handshape or Movement but phonological interference effects when target and distractor shared Location. The results suggest that the general distinction between semantic and phonological levels seems to hold across modalities. However, differences in sign language and spoken production become evident in the mechanisms underlying phonological encoding, shown by the different role that Location, Handshape, and Movement play during phonological encoding in sign language. ; This research has been partially supported by Grants SEJ2004-07680-C02-02/PSIC and SEJ2006-09238/PSIC from the Spanish Government. We thank all the deaf volunteers and the deaf associations CERECUSOR and CASAL DE SORDS DE BARCELONA (with special thanks to Javi Vidal, who signed the stimuli for the experiment, Santiago Frigola and Delfina Aliaga). We also thank Bencie Woll, Margaret Gillon Dowens, Ansgar Hantsch and the UCSD journal club for their helpful comments on the manuscript.

Here we investigated how the language in which a person addresses us, native or foreign, influences subsequent face recognition. In an old/new paradigm, we explored the behavioral and electrophysiological activity associated with face recognition memory. Participants were first presented with faces accompanied by voices speaking either in their native (NL) or foreign language (FL). Faces were then presented in isolation and participants decided whether the face was presented before (old) or not (new). The results revealed that participants were more accurate at remembering faces previously paired with their native as opposed to their FL. At the event-related potential (ERP) level, we obtained evidence that faces in the NL were differently encoded from those in the FL condition, potentially due to differences in processing demands. During recognition, the frontal old/new effect was present (with a difference in latency) regardless of the language with which a face was associated, while the parietal old/new effect appeared only for faces associated with the native language. These results suggest that the language of our social interactions has an impact on the memory processes underlying the recognition of individuals. ; Supporting grants: PSI2011-23033, CONSOLIDER-INGENIO2010 (CSD2007-00048), SGR 2014-1210, and FP7/2007-2013 (Cooperation grant agreement n. 613465 - AThEME). CB was supported by the People Program (Marie Curie Actions, FP7-PEOPLE 2014-2016) under REA agreement n∘623845. MC is supported by the Ramón y Cajal program (Spanish Government). JB is supported by a pre-doctoral fellowship (BES- 2013-063649).

Does language categorization influence face identification? The present study addressed this question by means of two experiments. First, to establish language categorization of faces, the memory confusion paradigm was used to create two language categories of faces, Spanish and English. Subsequently, participants underwent an oddball paradigm, in which faces that had been previously paired with one of the two languages (Spanish or English), were presented. We measured EEG perceptual differences (vMMN) between standard and two types of deviant faces: within-language category (faces sharing language with standards) or between-language category (faces paired with the other language). Participants were more likely to confuse faces within the language category than between categories, an index that faces were categorized by language. At the neural level, early vMMN were obtained for between-language category faces, but not for within-language category faces. At a later stage, however, larger vMMNs were obtained for those faces from the same language category. Our results showed that language is a relevant social cue that individuals used to categorize others and this categorization subsequently affects face perception. ; This work was supported by different projects from the Spanish Government (PSI2017-84539-P and RTI2018-096238-A-I00). Cristina Baus was supported by the Beatriu de Pinòs fellowship (BP00381, AGAUR) and the Ramon y Cajal research program (RYC2018-026174-I). Elisa Ruiz-Tada was supported by the Early Stage Research Grant (FI-DGR) from the Agency for Management of University and Research Funds (AGAUR) and the Catalan Government. Carles Escera was supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya (SGR2017-974) and the ICREA Acadèmia Distinguished Professorship.

We form very rapid personality impressions about speakers on hearing a single word. This implies that the acoustical properties of the voice (e.g., pitch) are very powerful cues when forming social impressions. Here, we aimed to explore how personality impressions for brief social utterances transfer across languages and whether acoustical properties play a similar role in driving personality impressions. Additionally, we examined whether evaluations are similar in the native and a foreign language of the listener. In two experiments we asked Spanish listeners to evaluate personality traits from different instances of the Spanish word "Hola" (Experiment 1) and the English word "Hello" (Experiment 2), native and foreign language respectively. The results revealed that listeners across languages form very similar personality impressions irrespective of whether the voices belong to the native or the foreign language of the listener. A social voice space was summarized by two main personality traits, one emphasizing valence (e.g., trust) and the other strength (e.g., dominance). Conversely, the acoustical properties that listeners pay attention to when judging other's personality vary across languages. These results provide evidence that social voice perception contains certain elements invariant across cultures/languages, while others are modulated by the cultural/linguistic background of the listener. ; This study was funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI, National Research Agency) and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER, European Regional Development Fund) under projects PSI2017- 84539-P and PSI2014-52181-P, the Catalan Government (2017 SGR 268), and the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 613465 - AThEME. CB was supported by the People Program (Marie Curie Actions, FP7-PEOPLE 2014–2016) under REA agreement n°623845 and now is supported by the Beatriu de Pinòs program (AGAUR, BP00381). PB was supported by supported by grant AJE201214 from French Foundation for Medical Research, and grants ANR-16-CONV-0002 (Institute of Language, Communication and the Brain), ANR-11-LABX-0036 (Brain and Language Research Institute) and the Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University (A*MIDEX).

Bilingual speakers are suggested to use control processes to avoid linguistic interference from the unintended language. It is debated whether these bilingual language control (BLC) processes are an instantiation of the more domain-general executive control (EC) processes. Previous studies inconsistently report correlations between measures of linguistic and non-linguistic control in bilinguals. In the present study, we investigate the extent to which there is cross-talk between these two domains of control for two switch costs, namely the n-1 shift cost and the n-2 repetition cost. Also, we address an important problem, namely the reliability of the measures used to investigate cross-talk. If the reliability of a measure is low, then these measures are ill-suited to test cross-talk between domains through correlations. We asked participants to perform both a linguistic- and non-linguistic switching task at two sessions about a week apart. The results show a dissociation between the two types of switch costs. Regarding test–retest reliability, we found a stronger reliability for the n-1 shift cost compared to the n-2 repetition cost within both domains as measured by correlations across sessions. This suggests the n-1 shift cost is more suitable to explore cross-talk of BLC and EC. Next, we do find cross-talk for the n-1 shift cost as demonstrated by a significant cross-domain correlation. This suggests that there are at least some shared processes in the linguistic and non-linguistic task. ; The research leading to these results has received funding from the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) with grant 446-14-006 and from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO) with the Juan de la Cierva grant (IJCI-2016-28564) awarded to KT. This work was also supported by grants from the Spanish government (PSI2014-52181-P and PSI2017-87784-R), the Catalan government (SGR 2009-1521 and 2017 SGR 268), the La Marató de TV3 Foundation (373/C/2014), and the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework (FP7/2007–2013 Cooperation Grant Agreement 613465-AThEME). And last, MC was supported by the postdoctoral Ramón y Cajal fellowship (RYC-2013-14013) and FB was supported by the postdoctoral Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship (658341).