@article{ZakariasSalisWartenburger2018,
  author    = {Zakarias, Lilla and Salis, Christos and Wartenburger, Isabell},
  title     = {Transfer effects on spoken sentence comprehension and functional communication after working memory training in stroke aphasia},
  series = {Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience},
  volume    = {48},
  journal   = {Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {0911-6044},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.jneuroling.2017.12.002},
  pages     = {47 -- 63},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Recent treatment protocols have been successful in improving working memory (WM) in individuals with aphasia. However, the evidence to date is small and the extent to which improvements in trained tasks of WM transfer to untrained memory tasks, spoken sentence comprehension, and functional communication is yet poorly understood. To address these issues, we conducted a multiple baseline study with three German-speaking individuals with chronic post stroke aphasia. Participants practised two computerised WM tasks (n-back with pictures and aback with spoken words) four times a week for a month, targeting two WM processes: updating WM representations and resolving interference. All participants showed improvement on at least one measure of spoken sentence comprehension and everyday memory activities. Two of them showed improvement also on measures of WM and functional communication. Our results suggest that WM can be improved through computerised training in chronic aphasia and this can transfer to spoken sentence comprehension and functional communication in some individuals.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{BurmesterSauermannSpaleketal.2018,
  author    = {Burmester, Juliane and Sauermann, Antje and Spalek, Katharina and Wartenburger, Isabell},
  title     = {Sensitivity to salience},
  series = {Language, cognition and neuroscience},
  volume    = {33},
  journal   = {Language, cognition and neuroscience},
  number    = {6},
  publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group},
  address   = {Abingdon},
  issn      = {2327-3798},
  doi       = {10.1080/23273798.2018.1428758},
  pages     = {784 -- 801},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Sentence comprehension is optimised by indicating entities as salient through linguistic (i.e., information-structural) or visual means. We compare how salience of a depicted referent due to a linguistic (i.e., topic status) or visual cue (i.e., a virtual person's gaze shift) modulates sentence comprehension in German. We investigated processing of sentences with varying word order and pronoun resolution by means of self-paced reading and an antecedent choice task, respectively. Our results show that linguistic as well as visual salience cues immediately speeded up reading times of sentences mentioning the salient referent first. In contrast, for pronoun resolution, linguistic and visual cues modulated antecedent choice preferences less congruently. In sum, our findings speak in favour of a significant impact of linguistic and visual salience cues on sentence comprehension, substantiating that salient information delivered via language as well as the visual environment is integrated in the current mental representation of the discourse.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{HolzgrefeLangWellmannHoehleetal.2018,
  author    = {Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia and Wellmann, Caroline and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Wartenburger, Isabell},
  title     = {Infants' Processing of Prosodic Cues},
  series = {Language and speech},
  volume    = {61},
  journal   = {Language and speech},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Sage Publ.},
  address   = {London},
  issn      = {0023-8309},
  doi       = {10.1177/0023830917730590},
  pages     = {153 -- 169},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Infants as young as six months are sensitive to prosodic phrase boundaries marked by three acoustic cues: pitch change, final lengthening, and pause. Behavioral studies suggest that a language-specific weighting of these cues develops during the first year of life; recent work on German revealed that eight-month-olds, unlike six-month-olds, are capable of perceiving a prosodic boundary on the basis of pitch change and final lengthening only. The present study uses Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neuro-cognitive development of prosodic cue perception in German-learning infants. In adults' ERPs, prosodic boundary perception is clearly reflected by the so-called Closure Positive Shift (CPS). To date, there is mixed evidence on whether an infant CPS exists that signals early prosodic cue perception, or whether the CPS emerges only later—the latter implying that infantile brain responses to prosodic boundaries reflect acoustic, low-level pause detection. We presented six- and eight-month-olds with stimuli containing either no boundary cues, only a pitch cue, or a combination of both pitch change and final lengthening. For both age groups, responses to the former two conditions did not differ, while brain responses to prosodic boundaries cued by pitch change and final lengthening showed a positivity that we interpret as a CPS-like infant ERP component. This hints at an early sensitivity to prosodic boundaries that cannot exclusively be based on pause detection. Instead, infants' brain responses indicate an early ability to exploit subtle, relational prosodic cues in speech perception—presumably even earlier than could be concluded from previous behavioral results.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{FiederWartenburgerAbdelRahman2018,
  author    = {Fieder, Nora and Wartenburger, Isabell and Abdel Rahman, Rasha},
  title     = {A close call},
  series = {Memory \& cognition},
  volume    = {47},
  journal   = {Memory \& cognition},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address   = {New York},
  issn      = {0090-502X},
  doi       = {10.3758/s13421-018-0856-y},
  pages     = {145 -- 168},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {The present study investigated how lexical selection is influenced by the number of semantically related representations (semantic neighbourhood density) and their similarity (semantic distance) to the target in a speeded picture-naming task. Semantic neighbourhood density and similarity as continuous variables were used to assess lexical selection for which competitive and noncompetitive mechanisms have been proposed. Previous studies found mixed effects of semantic neighbourhood variables, leaving this issue unresolved. Here, we demonstrate interference of semantic neighbourhood similarity with less accurate naming responses and a higher likelihood of producing semantic errors and omissions over accurate responses for words with semantically more similar (closer) neighbours. No main effect of semantic neighbourhood density and no interaction between semantic neighbourhood density and similarity was found. We assessed further whether semantic neighbourhood density can affect naming performance if semantic neighbours exceed a certain degree of semantic similarity. Semantic similarity between the target and each neighbour was used to split semantic neighbourhood density into two different density variables: The number of semantically close neighbours versus distant neighbours. The results showed a significant effect of close, but not of distant, semantic neighbourhood density: Naming pictures of targets with more close semantic neighbours led to longer naming latencies, less accurate responses, and a higher likelihood for the production of semantic errors and omissions over accurate responses. The results show that word inherent semantic attributes such as semantic neighbourhood similarity and the number of coactivated close semantic neighbours modulate lexical selection supporting theories of competitive lexical processing.},
  language  = {en}
}