Notably, while English tends to prefer shorter before longercomplements (explained to us a very clear effect), Japanesedisplays the opposite tendency. Far less cross-linguistic workhas investigated possible differences in the ordering of nounswithin conjunctions (“binomials’), although a corpus studysuggests that the same factors predict binomial ordering inJapanese and English. To investigate the issue experimentally,we report Japanese and English speakers’ productions of namesof the members of couples that they knew personally. Resultsconfirm that conceptual accessibility is the most importantfactor in the ordering of familiar name binomials in bothlanguages. That is, both groups tended to name the memberthey felt closer to first. Length (syllables/mora) was not asignificant predictor in either language. Differences in thepreferred order of verbs’ complements are then attributable toother factors, possibly a very general preference to minimizethe average distance between semantically related elements.

In mice, retinal direction selectivity is organized in a map that aligns to the body and gravitational axes of optic flow, and little is known about how this map develops. We find direction selectivity maps are largely present at eye opening and develop normally in the absence of visual experience. Remarkably, in mice lacking the beta2 subunit of neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (β2-nAChR-KO), which exhibit drastically reduced cholinergic retinal waves in the first postnatal week, selectivity to horizontal motion is absent while selectivity to vertical motion remains. We tested several possible mechanisms that could explain the loss of horizontal direction selectivity in β2-nAChR-KO mice (wave propagation bias, FRMD7 expression, starburst amacrine cell morphology), but all were found to be intact when compared with WT mice. This work establishes a role for retinal waves in the development of asymmetric circuitry that mediates retinal direction selectivity via an unknown mechanism.