@article{HanneSekerinaVasishthetal.2011, author = {Hanne, Sandra and Sekerina, Irina A. and Vasishth, Shravan and Burchert, Frank and De Bleser, Ria}, title = {Chance in agrammatic sentence comprehension what does it really mean? Evidence from eye movements of German agrammatic aphasic patients}, series = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {25}, journal = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, number = {2}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hove}, issn = {0268-7038}, doi = {10.1080/02687038.2010.489256}, pages = {221 -- 244}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Background: In addition to the canonical subject-verb-object (SVO) word order, German also allows for non-canonical order (OVS), and the case-marking system supports thematic role interpretation. Previous eye-tracking studies (Kamide et al., 2003; Knoeferle, 2007) have shown that unambiguous case information in non-canonical sentences is processed incrementally. For individuals with agrammatic aphasia, comprehension of non-canonical sentences is at chance level (Burchert et al., 2003). The trace deletion hypothesis (Grodzinsky 1995, 2000) claims that this is due to structural impairments in syntactic representations, which force the individual with aphasia (IWA) to apply a guessing strategy. However, recent studies investigating online sentence processing in aphasia (Caplan et al., 2007; Dickey et al., 2007) found that divergences exist in IWAs' sentence-processing routines depending on whether they comprehended non-canonical sentences correctly or not, pointing rather to a processing deficit explanation. Aims: The aim of the current study was to investigate agrammatic IWAs' online and offline sentence comprehension simultaneously in order to reveal what online sentence-processing strategies they rely on and how these differ from controls' processing routines. We further asked whether IWAs' offline chance performance for non-canonical sentences does indeed result from guessing. Methods Procedures: We used the visual-world paradigm and measured eye movements (as an index of online sentence processing) of controls (N = 8) and individuals with aphasia (N = 7) during a sentence-picture matching task. Additional offline measures were accuracy and reaction times. Outcomes Results: While the offline accuracy results corresponded to the pattern predicted by the TDH, IWAs' eye movements revealed systematic differences depending on the response accuracy. Conclusions: These findings constitute evidence against attributing IWAs' chance performance for non-canonical structures to mere guessing. Instead, our results support processing deficit explanations and characterise the agrammatic parser as deterministic and inefficient: it is slowed down, affected by intermittent deficiencies in performing syntactic operations, and fails to compute reanalysis even when one is detected.}, language = {en} } @article{BurchertHanneVasishth2013, author = {Burchert, Frank and Hanne, Sandra and Vasishth, Shravan}, title = {Sentence comprehension disorders in aphasia the concept of chance performance revisited}, series = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {27}, journal = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, number = {1}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hove}, issn = {0268-7038}, doi = {10.1080/02687038.2012.730603}, pages = {112 -- 125}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Background: In behavioural tests of sentence comprehension in aphasia, correct and incorrect responses are often randomly distributed. Such a pattern of chance performance is a typical trait of Broca's aphasia, but can be found in other aphasic syndromes as well. Many researchers have argued that chance behaviour is the result of a guessing strategy, which is adopted in the face of a syntactic breakdown in sentence processing. Aims: Capitalising on new evidence from recent studies investigating online sentence comprehension in aphasia using the visual world paradigm, the aim of this paper is to review the concept of chance performance as a reflection of a syntactic impairment in sentence processing and to re-examine the conventional interpretation of chance performance as a guessing behaviour. Main Contribution: Based on a review of recent evidence from visual world paradigm studies, we argue that the assumption of chance performance equalling guessing is not necessarily compatible with actual real-time parsing procedures in people with aphasia. We propose a reinterpretation of the concept of chance performance by assuming that there are two distinct processing mechanisms underlying sentence comprehension in aphasia. Correct responses are always the result of normal-like parsing mechanisms, even in those cases where the overall performance pattern is at chance. Incorrect responses, on the other hand, are the result of intermittent deficiencies of the parser. Hence the random guessing behaviour that persons with aphasia often display does not necessarily reflect a syntactic breakdown in sentence comprehension and a random selection between alternatives. Instead it should be regarded as a result of temporal deficient parsing procedures in otherwise normal-like comprehension routines. Conclusion: Our conclusion is that the consideration of behavioural offline data alone may not be sufficient to interpret a performance in language tests and subsequently draw theoretical conclusions about language impairments. Rather it is important to call on additional data from online studies that look at language processing in real time in order to gain a comprehensive picture about syntactic comprehension abilities of people with aphasia and possible underlying deficits.}, language = {en} } @article{HanneBurchertDeBleseretal.2015, author = {Hanne, Sandra and Burchert, Frank and De Bleser, Ria and Vasishth, Shravan}, title = {Sentence comprehension and morphological cues in aphasia: What eye-tracking reveals about integration and prediction}, series = {Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience}, volume = {34}, 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.2014.12.003}, pages = {83 -- 111}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Comprehension of non-canonical sentences can be difficult for individuals with aphasia (IWA). It is still unclear to which extent morphological cues like case marking or verb inflection may influence IWA's performance or even help to override deficits in sentence comprehension. Until now, studies have mainly used offline methods to draw inferences about syntactic deficits and, so far, only a few studies have looked at online syntactic processing in aphasia. We investigated sentence processing in German-speaking IWA by combining an offline (sentence-picture matching) and an online (eye-tracking in the visual-world paradigm) method. Our goal was to determine whether IWA are capable of using inflectional morphology (number-agreement markers on verbs and case markers in noun phrases) as a cue to sentence interpretation. We report results of two visual-world experiments using German reversible SVO and OVS sentences. In each study, there were eight IWA and 20 age-matched controls. Experiment 1 targeted the role of unambiguous case morphology, while Experiment 2 looked at processing of number-agreement cues at the verb in caseambiguous sentences. IWA showed deficits in using both types of morphological markers as a cue to non-canonical sentence interpretation and the results indicate that in aphasia, processing of case-marking cues is more vulnerable as compared to verbagreement morphology. We ascribe this finding to the higher cue reliability of agreement cues, which renders them more resistant against impairments in aphasia. However, the online data revealed that IWA are in principle capable of successfully computing morphological cues, but the integration of morphological information is delayed as compared to age-matched controls. Furthermore, we found striking differences between controls and IWA regarding subject-before-object parsing predictions. While in case-unambiguous sentences IWA showed evidence for early subjectbefore-object parsing commitments, they exhibited no straightforward subject-first prediction in case-ambiguous sentences, although controls did so for ambiguous structures. IWA delayed their parsing decisions in case-ambiguous sentences until unambiguous morphological information, such as a subject-verbnumber-agreement cue, was available. We attribute the results for IWA to deficits in predictive processes based on morphosyntactic cues during sentence comprehension. The results indicate that IWA adopt a wait-and-see strategy and initiate prediction of upcoming syntactic structure only when unambiguous case or agreement cues are available. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @misc{TracyHeideWahletal.2009, author = {Tracy, Rosemarie and Heide, Judith and Wahl, Michael and Triarchi-Herrmann, Vassilia and Grimm, Angela and Wotschack, Christiane and Kulik, Sylvia and Frank, Ulrike and Klassert, Annegret and Gagarina, Natalʹja Vladimirovna and Kauschke, Christina and Eicher, Iris and Tsakmaki, Barbara and Akkaya, Zeynep and Castillo, Esmeralda and Groba, Agnes and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Miertsch, Barbara and Hubert, Anja and Sauerland, Uli and Schr{\"o}der, Caroline and Stadie, Nicole and Wittler, Marion and Berendes, Karin and Gottal, Stephanie and Grabherr, Britta and Zaps, Jennifer and Ptok, Martin and Hanne, Sandra and Sekerina, Irina A. and Vasishth, Shravan and Burchert, Frank and De Bleser, Ria and Kleissendorf, Barbara and Jaecks, Petra and Stenneken, Prisca and Fischer, Ivette and Moedebeck, Petra}, title = {Spektrum Patholinguistik = Schwerpunktthema: Ein Kopf - Zwei Sprachen : Mehrsprachigkeit in Forschung und Therapie}, number = {2}, editor = {Heide, Judith and Hanne, Sandra and Brandt-Kobele, Oda-Christina and Fritzsche, Tom}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, organization = {Verband f{\"u}r Patholinguistik e. V. (vpl)}, isbn = {978-3-940793-89-8}, issn = {1869-3822}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-3086}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-30451}, year = {2009}, abstract = {"Spektrum Patholinguistik" (Band 2) ist der Tagungsband zum 2. Herbsttreffen Patholinguistik, das der Verband f{\"u}r Patholinguistik (vpl) e.V. am 22.11.2008 an der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam veranstaltet hat. Zum Schwerpunktthema "Ein Kopf - Zwei Sprachen: Mehrsprachigkeit in Forschung und Therapie" sind die drei Hauptvortr{\"a}ge und vier Abstracts von Posterpr{\"a}sentationen ver{\"o}ffentlicht. Desweiteren enth{\"a}lt der Tagungsband freie Beitr{\"a}ge, u.a. zu Satzverarbeitung und Agrammatismus, Lesestrategien und LRS, Prosodie-Entwicklung, kindlichen Aphasien, Dysphagie-Therapie sowie zu kognitiven Defiziten bei {\"a}lteren Menschen.}, language = {de} } @book{HanneSekerinaVasishthetal.2009, author = {Hanne, Sandra and Sekerina, Irina and Vasishth, Shravan and Burchert, Frank and De Bleser, Ria}, title = {Online Satzverarbeitung kanonischer und nicht-kanonischer S{\"a}tze bei Agrammatismus : eine Blickbewegungsstudie}, year = {2009}, language = {de} } @article{HanneBurchertVasishth2015, author = {Hanne, Sandra and Burchert, Frank and Vasishth, Shravan}, title = {Satzverst{\"a}ndnisst{\"o}rungen bei Aphasie}, series = {Spektrum Patholinguistik (Band 8) - Schwerpunktthema: Besonders behandeln? : Sprachtherapie im Rahmen prim{\"a}rer St{\"o}rungsbilder}, journal = {Spektrum Patholinguistik (Band 8) - Schwerpunktthema: Besonders behandeln? : Sprachtherapie im Rahmen prim{\"a}rer St{\"o}rungsbilder}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-79758}, pages = {71 -- 93}, year = {2015}, language = {de} } @article{HanneBurchertVasishth2016, author = {Hanne, Sandra and Burchert, Frank and Vasishth, Shravan}, title = {On the nature of the subject-object asymmetry in wh-question comprehension in aphasia: evidence from eye tracking}, series = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {30}, journal = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {0268-7038}, doi = {10.1080/02687038.2015.1065469}, pages = {435 -- 462}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Background: Individuals with aphasia (IWA) show deficits in comprehending object-extracted declaratives while comprehension of subject-extracted structures is relatively preserved. It is a matter of debate whether this subject-object asymmetry also arises for comprehension of wh-questions. Successful comprehension of wh-questions critically entails correct resolution of a filler-gap dependency. Most previous studies have used only offline accuracy measures to investigate wh-question comprehension in aphasia. Online studies exploring syntactic processing in real time are needed in order to draw inferences about gap-filling abilities in IWA and to identify the point of breakdown in sentence comprehension. Aims: This study aimed at investigating processing of subject and object who-questions in German-speaking IWA and in a group of controls by combining an offline and online method. We further aimed to explore the impact of case-marking cues on processing of wh-questions. Methods \& Procedures: Applying a variant of the visual world eye-tracking paradigm, we measured participants' eye movements while they performed the same offline task, which is frequently used to assess comprehension of declaratives (sentence-picture matching). Outcomes \& Results: Concerning online processing of who-questions in controls, we found anticipation of the most likely post-verbal theta-role immediately after processing the case-marked wh-pronoun in both subject and object questions. In addition, we observed an unexpected advantage of object over subject questions in terms of processing time. The offline results for IWA revealed that there were three heterogeneous patterns: (a) symmetrical comprehension with equal impairments for both question types, (b) asymmetrical performance with better comprehension of subject than object who-questions, and (c) a reversed asymmetry with better comprehension of object as compared to subject questions. For online processing of both types of who-questions, IWA showed retained abilities in postulating the gap and in associating the filler with this gap, although they were slower as compared to controls. Moreover, similarly to controls, they anticipated the most likely post-verbal theta-role. Conclusions: For controls, the findings provide evidence for rapid resolution of the filler-gap dependency and incremental processing of case-marking cues, reflected in early prediction of upcoming syntactic structure. We attribute faster processing of object questions to faster alignment of the anticipated element with a semantically more salient character. For IWA, the online data provide evidence for retained predictive abilities in processing of filler-gap dependencies in wh-questions, but prediction was delayed. This is most likely attributed to delayed integration of case-marking cues.}, language = {en} } @article{PatilHanneBurchertetal.2016, author = {Patil, Umesh and Hanne, Sandra and Burchert, Frank and De Bleser, Ria and Vasishth, Shravan}, title = {A Computational Evaluation of Sentence Processing Deficits in Aphasia}, series = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society}, volume = {40}, journal = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0364-0213}, doi = {10.1111/cogs.12250}, pages = {5 -- 50}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Individuals with agrammatic Broca's aphasia experience difficulty when processing reversible non-canonical sentences. Different accounts have been proposed to explain this phenomenon. The Trace Deletion account (Grodzinsky, 1995, 2000, 2006) attributes this deficit to an impairment in syntactic representations, whereas others (e.g., Caplan, Waters, Dede, Michaud, \& Reddy, 2007; Haarmann, Just, \& Carpenter, 1997) propose that the underlying structural representations are unimpaired, but sentence comprehension is affected by processing deficits, such as slow lexical activation, reduction in memory resources, slowed processing and/or intermittent deficiency, among others. We test the claims of two processing accounts, slowed processing and intermittent deficiency, and two versions of the Trace Deletion Hypothesis (TDH), in a computational framework for sentence processing (Lewis \& Vasishth, 2005) implemented in ACT-R (Anderson, Byrne, Douglass, Lebiere, \& Qin, 2004). The assumption of slowed processing is operationalized as slow procedural memory, so that each processing action is performed slower than normal, and intermittent deficiency as extra noise in the procedural memory, so that the parsing steps are more noisy than normal. We operationalize the TDH as an absence of trace information in the parse tree. To test the predictions of the models implementing these theories, we use the data from a German sentence—picture matching study reported in Hanne, Sekerina, Vasishth, Burchert, and De Bleser (2011). The data consist of offline (sentence-picture matching accuracies and response times) and online (eye fixation proportions) measures. From among the models considered, the model assuming that both slowed processing and intermittent deficiency are present emerges as the best model of sentence processing difficulty in aphasia. The modeling of individual differences suggests that, if we assume that patients have both slowed processing and intermittent deficiency, they have them in differing degrees.}, language = {en} } @misc{AktasSuccowGieletal.2015, author = {Aktas, Maren and Succow, Juliane and Giel, Barbara and Dressel, Katharina and Lange, Inga and Hanne, Sandra and Burchert, Frank and Vasishth, Shravan and Schwytay, Jeannine and Breitenstein, Sarah and Fleischhauer, Elisabeth and Baumann, Jeannine and Preisinger, Irmhild and Siegm{\"u}ller, Julia and Kuschmann, Anja and Ebert, Susanne and Lowit, Anja and Rath, Elisa and Heide, Judith and Lorenz, Antje and Wartenburger, Isabell and Hippeli, Carolin and Rausch, Monika and W{\"u}rzner, Kay-Michael and Schroeder, Sascha and Czapka, Sophia and Klassert, Annegret and Reuters, Sabine and Frank, Ulrike and Frank, Katrin and Zimmermann, Heinrich and Peiffers, Sabine and Thonicke, Mady}, title = {Spektrum Patholinguistik = Schwerpunktthema: Besonders behandeln? : Sprachtherapie im Rahmen prim{\"a}rer St{\"o}rungsbilder}, number = {8}, editor = {Adelt, Anne and Otto, Constanze and Fritzsche, Tom and Magister, Caroline}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, organization = {Verband f{\"u}r Patholinguistik e. V. (vpl)}, isbn = {978-3-86956-335-0}, issn = {1869-3822}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-7714}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-77147}, pages = {vii, 247}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Das 8. Herbsttreffen Patholinguistik mit dem Schwerpunktthema "Besonders behandeln? Sprachtherapie im Rahmen prim{\"a}rer St{\"o}rungsbilder" fand am 15.11.2014 in Potsdam statt. Das Herbsttreffen wird seit 2007 j{\"a}hrlich vom Verband f{\"u}r Patholinguistik e.V. (vpl) durchgef{\"u}hrt. Der vorliegende Tagungsband beinhaltet die vier Hauptvortr{\"a}ge zum Schwerpunktthema, die vier Kurzvortr{\"a}ge aus dem Spektrum Patholinguisitk sowie die Beitr{\"a}ge der Posterpr{\"a}sentationen zu weiteren Themen aus der sprachtherapeutischen Forschung und Praxis.}, language = {de} }