TY - THES A1 - Fengler, Anja T1 - How the brain attunes to sentence processing BT - relating behavior, structure, and function T2 - MPI series in human cognitive and brain sciences ; 174 N2 - While children acquire new words and simple sentence structures extremely fast and without much effort, the ability to process complex sentences develops rather late in life. Although the conjoint occurrence between brain-structural and brain-functional changes, the decrease of plasticity, and changes in cognitive abilities suggests a certain causality between these processes, concrete evidence for the relation between brain development, language processing, and language performance is rare. Therefore, the current dissertation investigates the tripartite relationship between behavior (in the form of language performance and cognitive maturation as prerequisite for language processing), brain structure (in the form of gray matter maturation), and brain function (in the form of brain activation evoked by complex sentence processing). Previous developmental studies indicate a missing increase of activation in accordance to sentence complexity (functional selectivity) in language-relevant brain areas in children. To determine the factors contributing to the functional development of language-relevant brain areas, different methodologies and data acquisition techniques were used to investigate the processing of center-embedded sentences in 5- and 6-year-old children, 7- and 8-year-old children, and adults. Behavioral results indicate that children between 5 and 8 years show difficulties in processing double embedded sentences and that their performance for these type of sentences is positively correlated with digit span. In 7- and 8-year-old children, it was found that especially the processing of long-distance relations between the initial phrase and its corresponding verb appears to be associated with the subject’s verbal working memory capacity. In contrast, children’s performance for double embedded sentences in the younger age group positively correlated with their performance in a standardized sentence comprehension test. This finding supports the hypothesis that processing difficulties in this age group may be mainly attributed to difficulties in processing case marking information. These findings are discussed with respect to current accounts of language and working memory development. A second study aimed at investigating the structural maturation of brain areas involved in sentence comprehension. To do this, whole-brain magnetic resonance images from 59 children between 5 and 8 years were collected and children’s gray matter was analyzed by using voxel-based morphometry. Children’s grammatical proficiency was assessed by a standardized sentence comprehension test. A confirmatory factory analysis corroborated a grammar-relevant and a verbal working memory-relevant factor underlying the measured performance. While children’s ability to assign thematic roles is positively correlated with gray matter probability (GMP) in the left inferior temporal gyrus and the left inferior frontal gyrus, verbal working memory-related performance is positively correlated with GMP in the left parietal operculum extending into the posterior superior temporal gyrus. These areas have been previously shown to be differentially engaged in adults’ complex sentence processing. Thus, the findings of the second study suggest a specific correspondence between children’s GMP in language-relevant brain regions and differential cognitive abilities which underlie complex sentence comprehension. In a third study, functional brain activity during the processing of center-embedded sentences was investigated in three different age groups (5–6 years, 7–8 years, and adults). Although all age groups engage a qualitatively comparable network of the left pars opercularis (PO), the left inferior parietal lobe extending into the posterior superior temporal gyrus (IPL/pSTG), the supplementary motor area (SMA) and the cerebellum, functional selectivity of these regions was only observable in adults. However, functional activation of the language-related regions (PO and IPL/pSTG) predicted sentence comprehension performance for all age groups. To solve the question of the complex interplay between different maturational factors, a fourth study analyzed the predictive power of gray matter probability, verbal working memory capacity, and behavioral differences in performance for simple and complex sentence for the functional selectivity of each activated region. These analyses revealed that the establishment of the adult-like functional selectivity for complex sentences is predicted by a reduction of the left PO’s gray matter probability across age groups while that of the IPL/pSTG is additionally predicted by verbal working memory capacity. Taken all findings together, the current thesis provides evidence that both structural brain maturation and verbal working memory expansion provide the basis for the emergence of functional selectivity in language-related brain regions leading to more efficient sentence processing during development. KW - language acquisition KW - brain development KW - verbal working memory KW - complex sentence processing KW - language network KW - Hirnentwicklung KW - verbales Arbeitsgedächtnis KW - Spracherwerb Y1 - 2016 SN - 978-3-941504-59-2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Noiray, Aude A1 - Ries, Jan A1 - Tiede, Mark A1 - Rubertus, Elina A1 - Laporte, Catherine A1 - Ménard, Lucie T1 - Recording and analyzing kinematic data in children and adults with SOLLAR BT - Sonographic & Optical Linguo-Labial Articulation Recording system JF - Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology N2 - Understanding the development of spoken language in young children has become increasingly important for advancing basic theories of language acquisition and for clinical practice. However, such a goal requires refined measurements of speech articulation (e.g., from the tongue), which are difficult to obtain from young children. In recent years though, technological advances have allowed developmental researchers to make significant steps in that direction. For instance, movements of the tongue, an articulator that is essential for spoken language, can now be tracked and recorded in children with ultrasound imaging. This technique has opened novel research avenues in (a)typical language acquisition, enabling researchers to reliably capture what has long remained invisible in the speech of young children. Within this context, we have designed an experimental platform for the recording and the processing of kinematic data: SOLLAR (Sonographic and Optical Linguo-Labial Articulatory Recording system). The method has been tailored for children, but it is suitable for adults. In the present article, we introduce the recording environment developed to record over 100 children and 30 adults within SOLLAR. We then describe SOLLAR’s data processing framework, providing examples of data visualization and a summary of strengths and limitations. KW - ultrasound imaging KW - speech kinematics KW - methodology KW - language acquisition Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/labphon.241 SN - 1868-6354 VL - 11 IS - 1 PB - Ubiquity Press CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Adani, Flavia A1 - Stegenwallner-Schütz, Maja Henny Katherine A1 - Niesel, Talea T1 - The Peaceful Co-existence of Input Frequency and Structural Intervention Effects on the Comprehension of Complex Sentences in German-Speaking Children JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - The predictions of two contrasting approaches to the acquisition of transitive relative clauses were tested within the same groups of German-speaking participants aged from 3 to 5 years old. The input frequency approach predicts that object relative clauses with inanimate heads (e.g., the pullover that the man is scratching) are comprehended earlier and more accurately than those with an animate head (e.g., the man that the boy is scratching). In contrast, the structural intervention approach predicts that object relative clauses with two full NP arguments mismatching in number (e.g., the man that the boys are scratching) are comprehended earlier and more accurately than those with number-matching NPs (e.g., the man that the boy is scratching). These approaches were tested in two steps. First, we ran a corpus analysis to ensure that object relative clauses with number-mismatching NPs are not more frequent than object relative clauses with number-matching NPs in child directed speech. Next, the comprehension of these structures was tested experimentally in 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds respectively by means of a color naming task. By comparing the predictions of the two approaches within the same participant groups, we were able to uncover that the effects predicted by the input frequency and by the structural intervention approaches co-exist and that they both influence the performance of children on transitive relative clauses, but in a manner that is modulated by age. These results reveal a sensitivity to animacy mismatch already being demonstrated by 3-year-olds and show that animacy is initially deployed more reliably than number to interpret relative clauses correctly. In all age groups, the animacy mismatch appears to explain the performance of children, thus, showing that the comprehension of frequent object relative clauses is enhanced compared to the other conditions. Starting with 4-year-olds but especially in 5-year-olds, the number mismatch supported comprehension—a facilitation that is unlikely to be driven by input frequency. Once children fine-tune their sensitivity to verb agreement information around the age of four, they are also able to deploy number marking to overcome the intervention effects. This study highlights the importance of testing experimentally contrasting theoretical approaches in order to characterize the multifaceted, developmental nature of language acquisition. KW - relative clauses KW - sentence comprehension KW - input frequency KW - number KW - animacy KW - language acquisition KW - German Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01590 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 8 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rubertus, Elina A1 - Noiray, Aude T1 - Vocalic activation width decreases across childhood BT - Evidence from carryover coarticulation JF - Laboratory Phonology N2 - This study is the first to use kinematic data to assess lingual carryover coarticulation in children. We investigated whether the developmental decrease previously attested in anticipatory coarticulation, as well as the relation between coarticulatory degree and the consonantal context, also characterize carryover coarticulation. Sixty-two children and 13 adults, all native speakers of German, were recruited according to five age cohorts: three-year-olds, four-year-olds, five-year-olds, seven-year-olds, and adults. Tongue movements during the production of ə.CV.Cə utterances (C = /b, d, g/, V = /i, y, e, a, o, u/) were recorded with ultrasound. We measured vowel-induced horizontal displacement of the tongue dorsum within the last syllable and compared the resulting coarticulatory patterns between age cohorts and consonantal contexts. Results indicate that the degree of vocalic carryover coarticulation decreases with age. Vocalic prominence within an utterance as well as its change across childhood depended on the postvocalic consonant’s articulatory demands for the tongue dorsum (i.e., its coarticulatory resistance): Low resistant /b/ and /g/ allowed for more vocalic perseveration and a continuous decrease, while the highly resistant /d/ displayed lower coarticulation degrees and discontinuous effects. These findings parallel those in anticipation suggesting a similar organization of anticipatory and carryover coarticulation. Implications for theories of speech production are discussed. KW - language acquisition KW - coarticulation KW - carryover effects KW - vowels KW - gestural organization KW - speech motor control Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/labphon.228 SN - 1868-6346 SN - 1868-6354 VL - 11 IS - 1 PB - de Gruyter Mouton CY - Berlin, New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sauermann, Antje A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - Word order in German child language and child-directed speech BT - a corpus analysis on the ordering of double objects in the German middlefield JF - Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics N2 - We report two corpus analyses to examine the impact of animacy, definiteness, givenness and type of referring expression on the ordering of double objects in the spontaneous speech of German-speaking two- to four-year-old children and the child-directed speech of their mothers. The first corpus analysis revealed that definiteness, givenness and type of referring expression influenced word order variation in child language and child-directed speech when the type of referring expression distinguished between pronouns and lexical noun phrases. These results correspond to previous child language studies in English (e.g., de Marneffe et al. 2012). Extending the scope of previous studies, our second corpus analysis examined the role of different pronoun types on word order. It revealed that word order in child language and child-directed speech was predictable from the types of pronouns used. Different types of pronouns were associated with different sentence positions but also showed a strong correlation to givenness and definiteness. Yet, the distinction between pronoun types diminished the effects of givenness so that givenness had an independent impact on word order only in child-directed speech but not in child language. Our results support a multi-factorial approach to word order in German. Moreover, they underline the strong impact of the type of referring expression on word order and suggest that it plays a crucial role in the acquisition of the factors influencing word order variation. KW - German KW - word order KW - corpus study KW - language acquisition KW - information structure KW - referring expression Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.281 SN - 2397-1835 VL - 3 IS - 1 PB - Ubiquity Press LTD CY - London ER -