TY - GEN A1 - Hilton, Matt A1 - Räling, Romy A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Parallels in Processing Boundary Cues in Speech and Action T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Speech and action sequences are continuous streams of information that can be segmented into sub-units. In both domains, this segmentation can be facilitated by perceptual cues contained within the information stream. In speech, prosodic cues (e.g., a pause, pre-boundary lengthening, and pitch rise) mark boundaries between words and phrases, while boundaries between actions of an action sequence can be marked by kinematic cues (e.g., a pause, pre-boundary deceleration). The processing of prosodic boundary cues evokes an Event-related Potentials (ERP) component known as the Closure Positive Shift (CPS), and it is possible that the CPS reflects domaingeneral cognitive processes involved in segmentation, given that the CPS is also evoked by boundaries between subunits of non-speech auditory stimuli. This study further probed the domain-generality of the CPS and its underlying processes by investigating electrophysiological correlates of the processing of boundary cues in sequences of spoken verbs (auditory stimuli; Experiment 1; N = 23 adults) and actions (visual stimuli; Experiment 2; N = 23 adults). The EEG data from both experiments revealed a CPS-like broadly distributed positivity during the 250 ms prior to the onset of the post-boundary word or action, indicating similar electrophysiological correlates of boundary processing across domains, suggesting that the cognitive processes underlying speech and action segmentation might also be shared. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 579 KW - Closure Positive Shift (CPS) KW - Event-related Potentials (ERP) KW - speech segmentation KW - action segmentation KW - prosodic boundary cues KW - prosody processing KW - kinematic boundary cues KW - action processing Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-437975 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 579 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hilton, Matt A1 - Räling, Romy A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Parallels in Processing Boundary Cues in Speech and Action JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Speech and action sequences are continuous streams of information that can be segmented into sub-units. In both domains, this segmentation can be facilitated by perceptual cues contained within the information stream. In speech, prosodic cues (e.g., a pause, pre-boundary lengthening, and pitch rise) mark boundaries between words and phrases, while boundaries between actions of an action sequence can be marked by kinematic cues (e.g., a pause, pre-boundary deceleration). The processing of prosodic boundary cues evokes an Event-related Potentials (ERP) component known as the Closure Positive Shift (CPS), and it is possible that the CPS reflects domaingeneral cognitive processes involved in segmentation, given that the CPS is also evoked by boundaries between subunits of non-speech auditory stimuli. This study further probed the domain-generality of the CPS and its underlying processes by investigating electrophysiological correlates of the processing of boundary cues in sequences of spoken verbs (auditory stimuli; Experiment 1; N = 23 adults) and actions (visual stimuli; Experiment 2; N = 23 adults). The EEG data from both experiments revealed a CPS-like broadly distributed positivity during the 250 ms prior to the onset of the post-boundary word or action, indicating similar electrophysiological correlates of boundary processing across domains, suggesting that the cognitive processes underlying speech and action segmentation might also be shared. KW - Closure Positive Shift (CPS) KW - Event-related Potentials (ERP) KW - speech segmentation KW - action segmentation KW - prosodic boundary cues KW - prosody processing KW - kinematic boundary cues KW - action processing Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01566 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 10 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia A1 - Wellmann, Caroline A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Infants’ Processing of Prosodic Cues BT - Electrophysiological Evidence for Boundary Perception beyond Pause Detection JF - Language and speech N2 - 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. KW - Language acquisition KW - speech perception KW - event-related potentials KW - prosody processing KW - prosodic boundary cues Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830917730590 SN - 0023-8309 SN - 1756-6053 VL - 61 IS - 1 SP - 153 EP - 169 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia A1 - Wellmann, Caroline A1 - Petrone, Caterina A1 - Raeling, Romy A1 - Truckenbrodt, Hubert A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - How pitch change and final lengthening cue boundary perception in German: converging evidence from ERPs and prosodic judgements JF - Language, cognition and neuroscience N2 - This study examines the role of pitch and final lengthening in German intonation phrase boundary (IPB) perception. Since a prosody-related event-related potential (ERP) component termed Closure Positive Shift reflects the processing of major prosodic boundaries, we combined ERP and behavioural measures (i.e. a prosodic judgement task) to systematically test the impact of sole and combined cue occurrences on IPB perception. In two experiments we investigated whether adult listeners perceived an IPB in acoustically manipulated speech material that contained none, one, or two of the prosodic boundary cues. Both ERP and behavioural results suggest that pitch and final lengthening cues have to occur in combination to trigger IPB perception. Hence, the combination of behavioural and electrophysiological measures provides a comprehensive insight into prosodic boundary cue perception in German and leads to an argument in favour of interrelated cues from the frequency (i.e. pitch change) and the time (i.e. final lengthening) domain. KW - Speech perception KW - prosody KW - Event-Related Potential (ERP) technique KW - Closure Positive Shift (CPS) KW - prosodic boundary cues Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2016.1157195 SN - 2327-3798 SN - 2327-3801 VL - 31 SP - 904 EP - 920 PB - Begell House CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wellmann, Caroline A1 - Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia A1 - Truckenbrodt, Hubert A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - How each prosodic boundary cue matters evidence from German infants JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Previous studies have revealed that infants aged 6-10 months are able to use the acoustic correlates of major prosodic boundaries, that is, pitch change, preboundary lengthening, and pause, for the segmentation of the continuous speech signal. Moreover, investigations with American-English- and Dutch-learning infants suggest that processing prosodic boundary markings involves a weighting of these cues. This weighting seems to develop with increasing exposure to the native language and to underlie crosslinguistic variation. In the following, we report the results of four experiments using the headturn preference procedure to explore the perception of prosodic boundary cues in German infants. We presented 8-month-old infants with a sequence of names in two different prosodic groupings, with or without boundary markers. Infants discriminated both sequences when the boundary was marked by all three cues (Experiment 1) and when it was marked by a pitch change and preboundary lengthening in combination (Experiment 2). The presence of a pitch change (Experiment 3) or preboundary lengthening (Experiment 4) as single cues did not lead to a successful discrimination. Our results indicate that pause is not a necessary cue for German infants. Pitch change and preboundary lengthening in combination, but not as single cues, are sufficient. Hence, by 8 months infants only rely on a convergence of boundary markers. Comparisons with adults' performance on the same stimulus materials suggest that the pattern observed with the 8-month-olds is already consistent with that of adults. We discuss our findings with respect to crosslinguistic variation and the development of a language-specific prosodic cue weighting. KW - infants KW - language acquisition KW - speech perception KW - prosodic bootstrapping KW - prosodic boundary cues KW - cue weighting KW - intonation phrase boundary KW - headturn preference procedure Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00580 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 3 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER -