Most of my work focused on mental representations and cognitive processes supporting language expression;
on the one hand, on issues related to learning and embodied/grounded cognition: how much our experience with the external world shapes our mental representations
on the other hand, on lexical acces: how these mental representations are activated/retrieved during language production.
Throughout my career, I continuously worked on word learning processes, and I also worked on attentional demand of language production.
My current main lines of research are on the lifespan changes of language abilities and how we can use eeg to map linguistic processes to neural activity.
Methods: Beyond behavioral measures, I use neuroscientific methods that provide a window into brain functioning, in particular electroencephalography, with a set of various ways to analyse the neural signal: waveform amplitudes, brain oscillations and microstates. I also have good experience in kinematic approaches, transcranial magnetic stimulation and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
! For more details on my past and present research projects, click HERE.
Learning novel words and their meanings in narrative contexts
Adults predominantly learn new vocabulary from reading and we know that the variability of contexts in which new words are encountered benefits learning. However, we still don't understand what features of variability lead to better learning of words, and in particular of their meanings. We investigate this issue with web-based experiments.
Fargier, R., Falck, A., Hovland, T., Bayar, H. & von Koss Torkildsen, J. The influence of contextual variability on learning novel words: does the type of variability matter? in prep
Language production, abstract words and embodied semantics
Speakers use language to name concrete objects and events but also to refer to more abstract entities such as truth, beauty or merit. Yet, the processes underlying the production of abstract words is virtually unknown. This is mainly due to the fact that we use picture naming as a proxy to investigate language production, which is thus restricted to imageable concepts. In a series of behavioral and electrophysiological studies, we build on inferential naming tasks (i.e. naming from definitions) to characterize the psycho- and neuro- linguistic properties of the production of abstract words and differences with the production of concrete words.
Fargier, R., Montant, M. & Strijkers, K. The production of abstract and concrete words: Activation of sensory and emotional experience during speech planning. Poster presented in 2019
Banks, B., Borghi, A.M., Fargier, R., Fini, C., Jonauskaite, D., Mazzuca, C., Montalti, M., Villani, C. and Woodin, G., 2023. Consensus Paper: Current Perspectives on Abstract Concepts and Future Research Directions. Journal of Cognition, 6(1)
Language across the lifespan
Speakers are able to retrieve and produce words within hunders of millisecons. Yet, children and older adults display more difficulties and longer production latencies compared to young adults. Moreover, our memory itself is bound to change because of our lifetime experience and growing vocabulary. In this projet, we investigate the dynamics of language production processes across the lifespan.
Atanasova, T., Fargier, R., Zesiger, P. & Laganaro, M. (2020) Dynamics of single word production from childhood to adolescence and adulthood, Neurobiology of Language
Fargier, R. & Laganaro, M. Referential and inferential production across the lifespan : different patterns and different predictive cognitive factors, accepted Frontiers in Psychology
Krethlow, G., Fargier, R., & Laganaro, M. (2020) Age-Specific Effects of Lexical-Semantic Networks on Word Production, Cognitive Science
*Digital publication: Visualization of lexico-semantic networks and their changes across the lifespan (2019) http://latlntic.unige.ch/projet_18-19/reseaux_semantiques/website/index.html
Contributors (alphabetic order): Fargier, R., Kokkinis-Ntrenis, N., Laganaro, M., Nerima, N., Proios, D., Wang, G.
Attention demand in language production
A large amount of data indicate that lexical selection is under attentional demand. By constrast, post-lexical processes and notably word-form encoding (i.e. phonological-phonetic encoding) are assumed to require less attention and more automatic. In a series of behavioral and EEG dual-task experiments conducted in healthy participants and in brain-damaged aphasic participants, we were able to demonstrate that in fact post-lexical processes are also under attentional demand, and that the success of phonological-phonetic encoding may rely on cross-talk mechanisms.
Fargier, R.,& Laganaro, M. (2019). Interference in speaking while hearing and vice versa. Scientific Reports. 9:5375.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41752-7
Laganaro, M., Bonnans, C., and Fargier, R. (2019) Impact of attentionnal interference on lexical and phonological processes in word production in persons with aphasia, Cognitive Neuropsychology, in Press.
Fargier, R. and Laganaro, M. (2016). Neurophysiological modulations of non-verbal and verbal dual-tasks interference during word planning, Plos ONE, 11(12): e0168358 [pdf]
Lexical-semantic processes and word production
In language production, lexical-semantic processing is often studied with picture naming and attention is paid particularly to semantic interference with picture-word interference paradigms or block-cycled naming paradigms. In this line of research, we investigated semantic facilitation and its neural underpinnings as well as to what extent semantic information (e.g. motor information for action words) was retrieved in picture naming. Our results show that semantic facilitation occurs at a post-lexical level of speech planning, and that lexical-semantic processing is largely constrained by the visual input. This led to another line of research comparing the cognitive and neural processes underlying language production from referential (picture) naming to inferential (from definition) naming.
Python, G, Fargier, R. and Laganaro, M. (2018) When Wine and Apple both help the production of Grapes: ERP evidence for post-lexical semantic facilitation in picture naming. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 12:136. dos: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00136. [pdf]
Python, G, Fargier, R. and Laganaro, M. (2018) ERP evidence of distinct processes underlying semantic facilitation and interference in word production, Cortex, 99:1-12. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.09.008.
Fargier, R. and Laganaro, M. (2017). Spatio-temporal dynamics of referential and inferential naming: Different brain and cognitive operations to lexical selection, Brain Topography, 30(2), 182-197. doi: 10.1007/s10548-016-0504-4 [pdf]
Fargier, R. and Laganaro, M. (2015). Neural dynamics of object noun, action verb and action noun production in picture naming, Brain and Language, 150:129–142. [pdf]
Semantics & embodied/grounded cognition
According to embodied/grounded cognition, mental representations are shaped by experience with referents throughout the life. For psycholinguistics or neuroscience, the general idea is to show whether sensory/motor or affective experience is (at least partly) retrieved while processing words or concepts. In my PhD, I tried to shed a light on these issues from the point of view of learning (in adults). Our results show that language-induced motor and visual activity emerge rapidly as a function of training.
Fargier, R. (2015) From modal brain structures to word-meaning, in Coello, Y. and Fischer, M. (eds), Conceptual and Interactive Embodiment: Foundations of Embodiment Cognition, Volume 2. East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press. [pdf]
Fargier, R., Ploux, S., Cheylus, A., Paulignan, Y., Reboul, A., and Nazir, T.A. (2014) Differentiating semantic categories during the acquisition of novel words: Correspondence Analysis applied to ERPs, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26(11):2552-63. [pdf]
Fargier, R. (2014) Du mouvement dans les mots: Apprentissage moteur du langage d’action, in Le langage au bout des doigts, Frak, V. & Nazir, T.A. (eds), Presses de l’Université du Québec. [pdf]
Fargier, R., Ménoret, M., Boulenger, V., Nazir, T.A and Paulignan, Y. (2012) Grasp it loudly! Supporting motor actions with semantically congruent spoken action words, PLoSONE, 7(1): e30663. [pdf]
Fargier, R., Paulignan, Y., Boulenger, V., Monaghan, P., Reboul, A. and Nazir, T.A. (2012) Learning to associate novel words with motor actions: Language-induced motor activity following short training, Cortex. [pdf]
Nazir, T.A., Fargier, R., Aravena, P. and Boulenger, V. (2012) When words trigger activity in the brain’s sensory and motor systems: It is not Remembrance of Things past, in Language and action in cognitive neuroscience, Coello, Y. & Bartolo, A. (eds), Psychology Press. [pdf]
Thesis manuscript: Cerveau et Sens des mots: De l'émergence à la flexibilité des représentations sémantiques dans le cerveau [english title: Tracking word meaning in the brain] [pdf]
Main collaborators
Fanny Meunier, Université Côte d'Azur, France
Patricia Reynaud-Bouret, Université Côte d'Azur, France
Janne von Koss Torkildsen, University of Oso, Norway
Andreas Falck, University of Oso, Norway
Kristof Strijkers, Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, LPL, Aix-en-Provence, France
Marie Montant, Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, LPC, Marseille, France
Marina Laganaro, FPSE, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Svetlana Pinet, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian, Spain
PhD advisors
Tatjana A. Nazir, L2C2-ISC CNRS, Lyon, France
Yves Paulignan, L2C2-ISC CNRS, Lyon, France
Funding
2022- Research supported by UCA - ANR for the Junior Professor Chair
2021- Research supported by UiO
2018-2020 Research supported by ILCB-BLRI
2016-2017 Research supported by the Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique
2014- Research supported by the Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique (FNS 105314_146113/1).
2009-2012 PhD research supported by a grant from UCBL1 (ED NSCo)