@misc{BaerHenney2009,
  type      = {Master Thesis},
  author    = {Baer-Henney, Dinah},
  title     = {On natural and probabilisic effects during acquisition of morphophonemic alternations},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-36819},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  year      = {2009},
  abstract  = {The acquisition of phonological alternations consists of many aspects as discussions in the relevant literature show. There are contrary findings about the role of naturalness. A natural process is grounded in phonetics; they are easy to learn, even in second language acquisition when adults have to learn certain processes that do not occur in their native language. There is also evidence that unnatural - arbitrary - rules can be learned. Current work on the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations suggests that their probability of occurrence is a crucial factor in acquisition. I have conducted an experiment to investigate the effects of naturalness as well as of probability of occurrence with 80 adult native speakers of German. It uses the Artificial Grammar paradigm: Two artificial languages were constructed, each with a particular alternation. In one language the alternation is natural (vowel harmony); in the other language the alternation is arbitrary (a vowel alternation depends on the sonorancy of the first consonant of the stem). The participants were divided in two groups, one group listened to the natural alternation and the other group listened to the unnatural alternation. Each group was divided into two subgroups. One subgroup then was presented with material in which the alternation occurred frequently and the other subgroup was presented with material in which the alternation occurred infrequently. After this exposure phase every participant was asked to produce new words during the test phase. Knowledge about the language-specific alternation pattern was needed to produce the forms correctly as the phonological contexts demanded certain alternants. The group performances have been compared with respect to the effects of naturalness and probability of occurrence. The natural rule was learned more easily than the unnatural one. Frequently presented rules were not learned more easily than the ones that were presented less frequently. Moreover, participants did not learn the unnatural rule at all, whether this rule was presented frequently or infrequently did not matter. There was a tendency that the natural rule was learned more easily if presented frequently than if presented infrequently, but it was not significant due to variability across participants.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Ott2012,
  author    = {Ott, Susan},
  title     = {Feld - f{\"a}llt - fehlt : Untersuchungen zur Phonologie-Morphosyntax-Schnittstelle bei Kindern und Erwachsenen},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-161-5},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-57798},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {379},
  year      = {2012},
  abstract  = {Neben der Frequenz eines cues ist es dessen Zuverl{\"a}ssigkeit, die Kindern hilft, die an sie gerichtete Sprache zu segmentieren, Worteinheiten zu erkennen sowie diese syntaktisch zu kategorisieren. Im Deutschen weist die Subsilbe „Langvokal+Konsonant+/t/" (z.B. in fehlt, wohnt) zuverl{\"a}ssig auf eine -t-flektierte Verbform hin. Die in kindgerichteter Sprache h{\"o}her frequente Subsilbe „Kurzvokal+Konsonant+/t/" (z.B. in Feld, Hemd, f{\"a}llt, rund) gibt hingegen keinen derartig eindeutigen Hinweis. Es wurde der Frage nachgegangen, inwiefern diese unterschiedlichen Zuverl{\"a}ssigkeiten und Frequenzen der Subsilben auf die Nomen-, Verb- und Verbflexionsverarbeitung einwirken. Drei Altersgruppen wurden untersucht: achtzehn Monate alte Kinder, drei- bis f{\"u}nfj{\"a}hrige sprachunauff{\"a}llige und -auff{\"a}llige Kinder sowie erwachsene Sprecher. Einfl{\"u}sse der unterschiedlichen Zuverl{\"a}ssigkeiten und Frequenzen der ausgew{\"a}hlten Subsilben konnten f{\"u}r alle Probandengruppen gefunden werden. Die Subsilbe stellt damit eine linguistische Gr{\"o}ße dar, die in der fr{\"u}hen Sprachwahrnehmung als cue dienen sowie die Sprachverarbeitung Erwachsener lenken kann und auch f{\"u}r die Sprachdiagnostik und -therapie sprachauff{\"a}lliger Kinder ber{\"u}cksichtigt werden sollte.},
  language  = {de}
}
@book{Dambacher2010,
  author    = {Dambacher, Michael},
  title     = {Bottom-up and top-down processes in reading : influences of frequency and predictability on event-related potentials and eye movements},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-059-5},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-42024},
  publisher      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {239},
  year      = {2010},
  abstract  = {In reading, word frequency is commonly regarded as the major bottom-up determinant for the speed of lexical access. Moreover, language processing depends on top-down information, such as the predictability of a word from a previous context. Yet, however, the exact role of top-down predictions in visual word recognition is poorly understood: They may rapidly affect lexical processes, or alternatively, influence only late post-lexical stages. To add evidence about the nature of top-down processes and their relation to bottom-up information in the timeline of word recognition, we examined influences of frequency and predictability on event-related potentials (ERPs) in several sentence reading studies. The results were related to eye movements from natural reading as well as to models of word recognition. As a first and major finding, interactions of frequency and predictability on ERP amplitudes consistently revealed top-down influences on lexical levels of word processing (Chapters 2 and 4). Second, frequency and predictability mediated relations between N400 amplitudes and fixation durations, pointing to their sensitivity to a common stage of word recognition; further, larger N400 amplitudes entailed longer fixation durations on the next word, a result providing evidence for ongoing processing beyond a fixation (Chapter 3). Third, influences of presentation rate on ERP frequency and predictability effects demonstrated that the time available for word processing critically co-determines the course of bottom-up and top-down influences (Chapter 4). Fourth, at a near-normal reading speed, an early predictability effect suggested the rapid comparison of top-down hypotheses with the actual visual input (Chapter 5). The present results are compatible with interactive models of word recognition assuming that early lexical processes depend on the concerted impact of bottom-up and top-down information. We offered a framework that reconciles the findings on a timeline of word recognition taking into account influences of frequency, predictability, and presentation rate (Chapter 4).},
  language  = {en}
}