TY - JOUR A1 - Zakariás, Lilla A1 - Keresztes, Attila A1 - Marton, Klara A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Positive effects of a computerised working memory and executive function JF - Neuropsychological rehabilitation N2 - Aphasia, the language disorder following brain damage, is frequently accompanied by deficits of working memory (WM) and executive functions (EFs). Recent studies suggest that WM, together with certain EFs, can play a role in sentence comprehension in individuals with aphasia (IWA), and that WM can be enhanced with intensive practice. Our aim was to investigate whether a combined WM and EF training improves the understanding of spoken sentences in IWA. We used a pre-post-test case control design. Three individuals with chronic aphasia practised an adaptive training task (a modified n-back task) three to four times a week for a month. Their performance was assessed before and after the training on outcome measures related to WM and spoken sentence comprehension. One participant showed significant improvement on the training task, another showed a tendency for improvement, and both of them improved significantly in spoken sentence comprehension. The third participant did not improve on the training task, however, she showed improvement on one measure of spoken sentence comprehension. Compared to controls, two individuals improved at least in one condition of the WM outcome measures. Thus, our results suggest that a combined WM and EF training can be beneficial for IWA. KW - Aphasia rehabilitation KW - transfer effect KW - updating training KW - interference control KW - sentence comprehension deficit Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2016.1159579 SN - 0960-2011 SN - 1464-0694 VL - 28 IS - 3 SP - 369 EP - 386 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zakarias, Lilla A1 - Salis, Christos A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Transfer effects on spoken sentence comprehension and functional communication after working memory training in stroke aphasia JF - Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience N2 - 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. KW - Aphasia KW - Working memory KW - n-back training KW - Transfer KW - Sentence comprehension KW - Verbal communication Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2017.12.002 SN - 0911-6044 VL - 48 SP - 47 EP - 63 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford 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 - TY - JOUR A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Steinbrink, Jens A1 - Telkemeyer, Silke A1 - Friedrich, Manuela A1 - Friederici, Angela D. A1 - Obrig, Hellmuth T1 - The processing of prosody : evidence of interhemispheric specialization at the age of four Y1 - 2007 SN - 1053-8119 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Kühn, Esther A1 - Sassenberg, Uta A1 - Foth, Manja A1 - Franz, Elizabeth A. A1 - van derMeer, Elke T1 - On the relationship between fluid intelligence, gesture production, and brain structure Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01602896 SN - 0160-2896 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Kühn, Esther A1 - Sassenberg, Uta A1 - Foth, Manja A1 - Franz, Elisabeth A. A1 - van der Meer, Elke T1 - On the relationship between fluid intelligence, gesture production, and brain structure N2 - Individuals scoring high in fluid intelligence tasks generally perform very efficiently in problem solving tasks and analogical reasoning tasks presumably because they are able to select the task-relevant information very quickly and focus on a limited set of task-relevant cognitive operations. Moreover, individuals with high fluid intelligence produce more representational hand and arm gestures when describing a geometric analogy task than individuals with average fluid intelligence. No study has yet addressed the relationship between intelligence, gesture production, and brain structure, to our knowledge. That was the purpose of our study. To characterize the relation between intelligence, gesture production, and brain structure we assessed the frequency of representational gestures and cortical thickness values in a group of adolescents differing in fluid intelligence. Individuals scoring high in fluid intelligence showed higher accuracy in the geometric analogy task and produced more representational gestures (in particular more movement gestures) when explaining how they solved the task and showed larger cortical thickness values in some regions in the left hemisphere (namely the pars opercularis, superior frontal, and temporal cortex) than individuals with average fluid intelligence. Moreover, the left pars opercularis (a part of Broca's area) and left transverse temporal cortex showed larger cortical thickness values in participants who produced representational and in particular movement gestures compared to those who did not. Our results thus indicate that cortical thickness of those brain regions is related to both high fluid intelligence and the production of gestures. Results are discussed in the gestures-as-simulated-action framework that states that gestures result from simulated perception and simulated action that underlie embodied language and mental imagery. Y1 - 2010 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01602896 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2009.11.001 SN - 0160-2896 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Preusse, Franziska A1 - Kramer, Jürg A1 - van der Meer, Elke T1 - Cerebral correlates of analogical processing and their modulation by training N2 - There is increasing interest ill understanding the neural systems that mediate analogical thinking, which is essential for learning and fluid intelligence. The aim of the present study was to shed light on the cerebral correlates of geometric analogical processing and on training-induced changes at the behavioral and brain level. In healthy participants a bilateral fronto-parietal network was engaged in processing geometric analogies and showed greater blood oxygenation dependent (BOLD) signals as resource demands increased. This network, as well as fusiform and subcortical brain regions, additionally showed training-induced decreases in the BOLD signal over time. The general finding that brain regions were modulated by the amount of resources demanded by the task, and/or by the reduction of allocated resources due to short term training, reflects increased efficiency - in terms of more focal and more specialized brain activation - to more economically process the geometric analogies. Our data indicate a rapid adaptation of the cognitive system which is efficiently modulated by short term training based on a positive correlation of resource demands and brain activation. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10538119 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.06.025 SN - 1053-8119 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Burchert, Frank A1 - Heinemann, Steffi A1 - De Bleser, Ria A1 - Villringer, Arno T1 - Neural correlates of syntactic transformations N2 - Many agrammatic aphasics have a specific syntactic comprehension deficit involving processing syntactic transformations. It has been proposed that this deficit is due to a dysfunction of Broca's area, an area that is thought to be critical for comprehension of complex transformed sentences. The goal of this study was to investigate the role of Broca's area in processing canonical and non-canonical sentences in healthy subjects. The sentences were presented auditorily and were controlled for task difficulty. Subjects were asked to judge the grammaticality of the sentences while their brain activity was monitored using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. Processing both kinds of sentences resulted in activation of language-related brain regions. Comparison of non-canonical and canonical sentences showed greater activation in bilateral temporal regions; a greater activation of Broca's area in processing antecedent-gap relations was not found. Moreover, the posterior part of Broca's area was conjointly activated by both sentence conditions. Broca's area is thus involved in general syntactic processing as required by grammaticality judgments and does not seem to have a specific role in processing syntactic transformations. (C) 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc Y1 - 2004 UR - http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/38751/home SN - 1065-9471 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Abutalebi, Jubin A1 - Cappa, Stefano F. A1 - Villringer, Arno A1 - Perani, Daniela T1 - Early setting of grammatical processing in the bilingual brain Y1 - 2003 UR - http://www.cell.com/neuron/home SN - 0896-6273 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Burchert, Frank A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - De Bleser, Ria A1 - Villringer, Arno T1 - Grammaticality judgments on sentences with and without movement of phrasal constituents : an event-related fMRI study Y1 - 2003 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09116044 SN - 0911-6044 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - van der Meer, Elke A1 - Beyer, Reinhard A1 - Horn, Judith A1 - Foth, Manja A1 - Bornemann, Boris A1 - Ries, Jan A1 - Kramer, Jürg A1 - Warmuth, Elke A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Resource allocation and fluid intelligence ; insights from pupillometry Y1 - 2010 UR - http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118485671/home?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 SN - 0048-5772 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Telkemeyer, Silke A1 - Rossi, Sonja A1 - Nierhaus, Till A1 - Steinbrink, Jens A1 - Obrig, Hellmuth A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Acoustic processing of temporally modulated sounds in infants evidence from a combined near-infrared spectroscopy and EEG study JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Speech perception requires rapid extraction of the linguistic content from the acoustic signal. The ability to efficiently process rapid changes in auditory information is important for decoding speech and thereby crucial during language acquisition. Investigating functional networks of speech perception in infancy might elucidate neuronal ensembles supporting perceptual abilities that gate language acquisition. Interhemispheric specializations for language have been demonstrated in infants. How these asymmetries are shaped by basic temporal acoustic properties is under debate. We recently provided evidence that newborns process non-linguistic sounds sharing temporal features with language in a differential and lateralized fashion. The present study used the same material while measuring brain responses of 6 and 3 month old infants using simultaneous recordings of electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). NIRS reveals that the lateralization observed in newborns remains constant over the first months of life. While fast acoustic modulations elicit bilateral neuronal activations, slow modulations lead to right-lateralized responses. Additionally, auditory-evoked potentials and oscillatory EEG responses show differential responses for fast and slow modulations indicating a sensitivity for temporal acoustic variations. Oscillatory responses reveal an effect of development, that is, 6 but not 3 month old infants show stronger theta-band desynchronization for slowly modulated sounds. Whether this developmental effect is due to increasing fine-grained perception for spectrotemporal sounds in general remains speculative. Our findings support the notion that a more general specialization for acoustic properties can be considered the basis for lateralization of speech perception. The results show that concurrent assessment of vascular based imaging and electrophysiological responses have great potential in the research on language acquisition. KW - infants KW - speech perception KW - language acquisition KW - auditory processing KW - near-infrared spectroscopy KW - event related potentials KW - brain oscillations Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00062 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 2 IS - 2 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Telkemeyer, Silke A1 - Rossi, Sonja A1 - Koch, Stefan P. A1 - Nierhaus, Till A1 - Steinbrink, Jens A1 - Poeppel, David A1 - Obrig, Hellmuth A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Sensitivity of newborn auditory cortex to the temporal structure of sounds N2 - Understanding the rapidly developing building blocks of speech perception in infancy requires a close look at the auditory prerequisites for speech sound processing. Pioneering studies have demonstrated that hemispheric specializations for language processing are already present in early infancy. However, whether these computational asymmetries can be considered a function of linguistic attributes or a consequence of basic temporal signal properties is under debate. Several studies in adults link hemispheric specialization for certain aspects of speech perception to an asymmetry in cortical tuning and reveal that the auditory cortices are differentially sensitive to spectrotemporal features of speech. Applying concurrent electrophysiological (EEG) and hemodynamic (near-infrared spectroscopy) recording to newborn infants listening to temporally structured nonspeech signals, we provide evidence that newborns process nonlinguistic acoustic stimuli that share critical temporal features with language in a differential manner. The newborn brain preferentially processes temporal modulations especially relevant for phoneme perception. In line with multi-time-resolution conceptions, modulations on the time scale of phonemes elicit strong bilateral cortical responses. Our data furthermore suggest that responses to slow acoustic modulations are lateralized to the right hemisphere. That is, the newborn auditory cortex is sensitive to the temporal structure of the auditory input and shows an emerging tendency for functional asymmetry. Hence, our findings support the hypothesis that development of speech perception is linked to basic capacities in auditory processing. From birth, the brain is tuned to critical temporal properties of linguistic signals to facilitate one of the major needs of humans: to communicate. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.jneurosci.org/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.1523/Jneurosci.1246-09.2009 SN - 0270-6474 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Spalek, Katharina A1 - Gotzner, Nicole A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Not only the apples BT - Focus sensitive particles improve memory for information-structural alternatives JF - Journal of memory and language : JML N2 - Focus sensitive particles highlight the relevance of contextual alternatives for the interpretation of a sentence. Two experiments tested whether this leads to better encoding and therefore, ultimately, better recall of focus alternatives. Participants were presented with auditory stimuli that introduced a set of elements ("context sentence") and continued in three different versions: the critical sentences either contained the exclusive particle nur ("only"), the inclusive particle sogar ("even"), or no particle (control condition). After being exposed to blocks of ten trials, participants were asked to recall the elements in the context sentence. The results show that both particles enhanced memory performance for the alternatives to the focused element, relative to the control condition. The results support the assumption that information-structural alternatives are better encoded in memory in the presence of a focus sensitive particle. KW - Information structure KW - Focus particles KW - Alternative set KW - Delayed recall KW - Memory Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2013.09.001 SN - 0749-596X SN - 1096-0821 VL - 70 SP - 68 EP - 84 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schroder, Astrid A1 - Gemballa, Teresa A1 - Ruppin, Steffie A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - German norms for semantic typicality, age of acquisition, and concept familiarity JF - Behavior research methods : a journal of the Psychonomic Society N2 - The present study introduces the first substantial German database with norms for semantic typicality, age of acquisition, and concept familiarity for 824 exemplars of 11 semantic categories, including four natural ( and ) and five man-made (, and ) categories, as well as and Each category exemplar in the database was collected empirically in an exemplar generation study. For each category exemplar, norms for semantic typicality, estimated age of acquisition, and concept familiarity were gathered in three different rating studies. Reliability data and additional analyses on effects of semantic category and intercorrelations between age of acquisition, semantic typicality, concept familiarity, word length, and word frequency are provided. Overall, the data show high inter- and intrastudy reliabilities, providing a new resource tool for designing experiments with German word materials. The full database is available in the supplementary material of this file and also at www.psychonomic.org/archive. KW - Semantic typicality KW - Age of acquisition KW - Concept familiarity KW - Norm data KW - Semantic categories KW - German database KW - Lexical-semantic processing KW - Exemplar generation Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-011-0164-y SN - 1554-351X VL - 44 IS - 2 SP - 380 EP - 394 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Scheibe, Christina A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Wüstenberg, Torsten A1 - Kathmann, Norbert A1 - Villringer, Arno A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. T1 - Neural correlates of the interaction between transient and sustained processes : a mixed blocked/event-related fMRI study Y1 - 2006 UR - http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/38751/home SN - 1065-9471 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Räling, Romy A1 - Schröder, Astrid A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - The origins of age of acquisition and typicality effects: Semantic processing in aphasia and the ageing brain JF - Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience N2 - Age of acquisition (AOA) has frequently been shown to influence response times and accuracy rates in word processing and constitutes a meaningful variable in aphasic language processing, while its origin in the language processing system is still under debate. To find out where AOA originates and whether and how it is related to another important psycholinguistic variable, namely semantic typicality (TYP), we studied healthy, elderly controls and semantically impaired individuals using semantic priming. For this purpose, we collected reaction times and accuracy rates as well as event-related potential data in an auditory category-member-verification task. The present results confirm a semantic origin of TYP, but question the same for AOA while favouring its origin at the phonology-semantics interface. The data are further interpreted in consideration of recent theories of ageing. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Ageing KW - Aphasia KW - N400 KW - Semantic typicality KW - Age of acquisition Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.04.019 SN - 0028-3932 SN - 1873-3514 VL - 86 SP - 80 EP - 92 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Räling, Romy A1 - Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia A1 - Schröder, Astrid A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - On the influence of typicality and age of acquisition on semantic processing: Diverging evidence from behavioural and ERP responses JF - Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience N2 - Various behavioural studies show that semantic typicality (TYP) and age of acquisition (AOA) of a specific word influence processing time and accuracy during the performance of lexical-semantic tasks. This study examines the influence of TYP and AOA on semantic processing at behavioural (response times and accuracy data) and electrophysiological levels using an auditory category-member-verification task. Reaction time data reveal independent TYP and AOA effects, while in the accuracy data and the event-related potentials predominantly effects of TYP can be found. The present study thus confirms previous findings and extends evidence found in the visual modality to the auditory modality. A modality-independent influence on semantic word processing is manifested. However, with regard to the influence of AOA, the diverging results raise questions on the origin of AOA effects as well as on the interpretation of offline and online data. Hence, results will be discussed against the background of recent theories on N400 correlates in semantic processing. In addition, an argument in favour of a complementary use of research techniques will be made. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Event-related potentials KW - N400 KW - Semantic typicality KW - Age of acquisition KW - Semantic priming KW - Category verification Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.05.031 SN - 0028-3932 SN - 1873-3514 VL - 75 SP - 186 EP - 200 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - GEN A1 - Räling, Romy A1 - Hanne, Sandra A1 - Schröder, Astrid A1 - Keßler, Carla A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Judging the animacy of words BT - the influence of typicality and age of acquisition in a semantic decision task N2 - The age at which members of a semantic category are learned (age of acquisition), the typicality they demonstrate within their corresponding category, and the semantic domain to which they belong (living, non-living) are known to influence the speed and accuracy of lexical/semantic processing. So far, only a few studies have looked at the origin of age of acquisition and its interdependence with typicality and semantic domain within the same experimental design. Twenty adult participants performed an animacy decision task in which nouns were classified according to their semantic domain as being living or non-living. Response times were influenced by the independent main effects of each parameter: typicality, age of acquisition, semantic domain, and frequency. However, there were no interactions. The results are discussed with respect to recent models concerning the origin of age of acquisition effects. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 305 KW - Age of acquisition KW - Animacy decision KW - Semantic classification task KW - Typicality Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-98402 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Räling, Romy A1 - Hanne, Sandra A1 - Schröder, Astrid A1 - Keßler, Carla A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Judging the animacy of words BT - The influence of typicality and age of acquisition in a semantic decision task JF - Quarterly journal of experimental psychology N2 - The age at which members of a semantic category are learned (age of acquisition), the typicality they demonstrate within their corresponding category, and the semantic domain to which they belong (living, non-living) are known to influence the speed and accuracy of lexical/semantic processing. So far, only a few studies have looked at the origin of age of acquisition and its interdependence with typicality and semantic domain within the same experimental design. Twenty adult participants performed an animacy decision task in which nouns were classified according to their semantic domain as being living or non-living. Response times were influenced by the independent main effects of each parameter: typicality, age of acquisition, semantic domain, and frequency. However, there were no interactions. The results are discussed with respect to recent models concerning the origin of age of acquisition effects. KW - Age of acquisition KW - Animacy decision KW - Semantic classification task KW - Typicality Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2016.1223704 SN - 1747-0218 SN - 1747-0226 VL - 70 IS - 10 SP - 2094 EP - 2104 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rossi, Sonja A1 - Telkemeyer, Silke A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Obrig, Hellmuth T1 - Shedding light on words and sentences near-infrared spectroscopy in language research JF - Brain & language : a journal of the neurobiology of language N2 - Investigating the neuronal network underlying language processing may contribute to a better understanding of how the brain masters this complex cognitive function with surprising ease and how language is acquired at a fast pace in infancy. Modern neuroimaging methods permit to visualize the evolvement and the function of the language network. The present paper focuses on a specific methodology, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), providing an overview over studies on auditory language processing and acquisition. The methodology detects oxygenation changes elicited by functional activation of the cerebral cortex. The main advantages for research on auditory language processing and its development during infancy are an undemanding application, the lack of instrumental noise, and its potential to simultaneously register electrophysiological responses. Also it constitutes an innovative approach for studying developmental issues in infants and children. The review will focus on studies on word and sentence processing including research in infants and adults. KW - Language KW - Language acquisition KW - Word processing KW - Sentence processing KW - Lateralization KW - Optical imaging (OI) KW - Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) KW - Electroencephalography (EEG) Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2011.03.008 SN - 0093-934X VL - 121 IS - 2 SP - 152 EP - 163 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rossi, Sonja A1 - Jürgenson, Ina B. A1 - Hanulikova, Adriana A1 - Telkemeyer, Silke A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Obrig, Hellmuth T1 - Implicit processing of phonotactic cues evidence from electrophysiological and vascular responses JF - Journal of cognitive neuroscience N2 - Spoken word recognition is achieved via competition between activated lexical candidates that match the incoming speech input. The competition is modulated by prelexical cues that are important for segmenting the auditory speech stream into linguistic units. One such prelexical cue that listeners rely on in spoken word recognition is phonotactics. Phonotactics defines possible combinations of phonemes within syllables or words in a given language. The present study aimed at investigating both temporal and topographical aspects of the neuronal correlates of phonotactic processing by simultaneously applying ERPs and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Pseudowords, either phonotactically legal or illegal with respect to the participants' native language, were acoustically presented to passively listening adult native German speakers. ERPs showed a larger N400 effect for phonotactically legal compared to illegal pseudowords, suggesting stronger lexical activation mechanisms in phonotactically legal material. fNIRS revealed a left hemispheric network including fronto-temporal regions with greater response to phonotactically legal pseudowords than to illegal pseudowords. This confirms earlier hypotheses on a left hemispheric dominance of phonotactic processing most likely due to the fact that phonotactics is related to phonological processing and represents a segmental feature of language comprehension. These segmental linguistic properties of a stimulus are predominantly processed in the left hemisphere. Thus, our study provides first insights into temporal and topographical characteristics of phonotactic processing mechanisms in a passive listening task. Differential brain responses between known and unknown phonotactic rules thus supply evidence for an implicit use of phonotactic cues to guide lexical activation mechanisms. Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2010.21547 SN - 0898-929X VL - 23 IS - 7 SP - 1752 EP - 1764 PB - MIT Press CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Richter, Maria A1 - Paul, Mariella A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Common Ground Information Affects Reference Resolution BT - Evidence From Behavioral Data, ERPs, and Eye-Tracking JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - One of the most important social cognitive skills in humans is the ability to “put oneself in someone else’s shoes,” that is, to take another person’s perspective. In socially situated communication, perspective taking enables the listener to arrive at a meaningful interpretation of what is said (sentence meaning) and what is meant (speaker’s meaning) by the speaker. To successfully decode the speaker’s meaning, the listener has to take into account which information he/she and the speaker share in their common ground (CG). We here further investigated competing accounts about when and how CG information affects language comprehension by means of reaction time (RT) measures, accuracy data, event-related potentials (ERPs), and eye-tracking. Early integration accounts would predict that CG information is considered immediately and would hence not expect to find costs of CG integration. Late integration accounts would predict a rather late and effortful integration of CG information during the parsing process that might be reflected in integration or updating costs. Other accounts predict the simultaneous integration of privileged ground (PG) and CG perspectives. We used a computerized version of the referential communication game with object triplets of different sizes presented visually in CG or PG. In critical trials (i.e., conflict trials), CG information had to be integrated while privileged information had to be suppressed. Listeners mastered the integration of CG (response accuracy 99.8%). Yet, slower RTs, and enhanced late positivities in the ERPs showed that CG integration had its costs. Moreover, eye-tracking data indicated an early anticipation of referents in CG but an inability to suppress looks to the privileged competitor, resulting in later and longer looks to targets in those trials, in which CG information had to be considered. Our data therefore support accounts that foresee an early anticipation of referents to be in CG but a rather late and effortful integration if conflicting information has to be processed. We show that both perspectives, PG and CG, contribute to socially situated language processing and discuss the data with reference to theoretical accounts and recent findings on the use of CG information for reference resolution. KW - perspective-taking KW - ERPs KW - eye-tracking KW - common ground KW - privileged ground Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.565651 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 11 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - GEN A1 - Richter, Maria A1 - Paul, Mariella A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Common Ground Information Affects Reference Resolution BT - Evidence From Behavioral Data, ERPs, and Eye-Tracking T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - One of the most important social cognitive skills in humans is the ability to “put oneself in someone else’s shoes,” that is, to take another person’s perspective. In socially situated communication, perspective taking enables the listener to arrive at a meaningful interpretation of what is said (sentence meaning) and what is meant (speaker’s meaning) by the speaker. To successfully decode the speaker’s meaning, the listener has to take into account which information he/she and the speaker share in their common ground (CG). We here further investigated competing accounts about when and how CG information affects language comprehension by means of reaction time (RT) measures, accuracy data, event-related potentials (ERPs), and eye-tracking. Early integration accounts would predict that CG information is considered immediately and would hence not expect to find costs of CG integration. Late integration accounts would predict a rather late and effortful integration of CG information during the parsing process that might be reflected in integration or updating costs. Other accounts predict the simultaneous integration of privileged ground (PG) and CG perspectives. We used a computerized version of the referential communication game with object triplets of different sizes presented visually in CG or PG. In critical trials (i.e., conflict trials), CG information had to be integrated while privileged information had to be suppressed. Listeners mastered the integration of CG (response accuracy 99.8%). Yet, slower RTs, and enhanced late positivities in the ERPs showed that CG integration had its costs. Moreover, eye-tracking data indicated an early anticipation of referents in CG but an inability to suppress looks to the privileged competitor, resulting in later and longer looks to targets in those trials, in which CG information had to be considered. Our data therefore support accounts that foresee an early anticipation of referents to be in CG but a rather late and effortful integration if conflicting information has to be processed. We show that both perspectives, PG and CG, contribute to socially situated language processing and discuss the data with reference to theoretical accounts and recent findings on the use of CG information for reference resolution. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 698 KW - perspective-taking KW - ERPs KW - eye-tracking KW - common ground KW - privileged ground Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-490607 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 698 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Preusse, Franziska A1 - van der Meer, Elke A1 - Deshpande, Gopikrishna A1 - Krüger, Frank A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Fluid intelligence allows flexible recruitment of the parieto-frontal network in analogical reasoning JF - Frontiers in human neuroscienc N2 - Fluid intelligence is the ability to think flexibly and to understand abstract relations. People with high fluid intelligence (hi-fluIQ) perform better in analogical reasoning tasks than people with average fluid intelligence (ave-fluIQ). Although previous neuroimaging studies reported involvement of parietal and frontal brain regions in geometric analogical reasoning (which is a prototypical task for fluid intelligence), however, neuroimaging findings on geometric analogical reasoning in hi-fluIQ are sparse. Furthermore, evidence on the relation between brain activation and intelligence while solving cognitive tasks is contradictory. The present study was designed to elucidate the cerebral correlates of geometric analogical reasoning in a sample of hi-fluIQ and ave-fluIQ high school students. We employed a geometric analogical reasoning task with graded levels of task difficulty and confirmed the involvement of the parieto-frontal network in solving this task. In addition to characterizing the brain regions involved in geometric analogical reasoning in hi-fluIQ and ave-fluIQ, we found that blood oxygenation level dependency (BOLD) signal changes were greater for hi-fluIQ than for ave-fluIQ in parietal brain regions. However, ave-fluIQ showed greater BOLD signal changes in the anterior cingulate cortex and medial frontal gyrus than hi-fluIQ. Thus, we showed that a similar network of brain regions is involved in geometric analogical reasoning in both groups. Interestingly, the relation between brain activation and intelligence is not mono-directional, but rather, it is specific for each brain region. The negative brain activation-intelligence relationship in frontal brain regions in hi-fluIQ goes along with a better behavioral performance and reflects a lower demand for executive monitoring compared to ave-fluIQ individuals. In conclusion, our data indicate that flexibly modulating the extent of regional cerebral activity is characteristic for fluid intelligence. KW - high fluid intelligence KW - geometric analogical reasoning KW - task difficulty KW - functional magnetic resonance imaging KW - parieto-frontal network Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00022 SN - 1662-5161 VL - 5 IS - 3 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Prehn, Kristin A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Mériau, Katja A1 - Scheibe, Christina A1 - Goodenough, Oliver R. A1 - Villringer, Arno A1 - van der Meer, Elke A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. T1 - Individual differences in moral judgment competence influence neural correlates of socio-normative judgments Y1 - 2008 UR - http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/by/year SN - 1749-5016 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Petrone, Caterina A1 - Truckenbrodt, Hubert A1 - Wellmann, Caroline A1 - Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - Prosodic boundary cues in German BT - evidence from the production and perception of bracketed lists JF - Journal of phonetics N2 - This study investigates prosodic phrasing of bracketed lists in German. We analyze variation in pauses, phrase-final lengthening and f0 in speech production and how these cues affect boundary perception. In line with the literature, it was found that pauses are often used to signal intonation phrase boundaries, while final lengthening and f0 are employed across different levels of the prosodic hierarchy. Deviations from expectations based on the standard syntax-prosody mapping are interpreted in terms of task-specific effects. That is, we argue that speakers add/delete prosodic boundaries to enhance the phonological contrast between different bracketings in the experimental task. In perception, three experiments were run, in which we tested only single cues (but temporally distributed at different locations of the sentences). Results from identification tasks and reaction time measurements indicate that pauses lead to a more abrupt shift in listeners׳ prosodic judgments, while f0 and final lengthening are exploited in a more gradient manner. Hence, pauses, final lengthening and f0 have an impact on boundary perception, though listeners show different sensitivity to the three acoustic cues. KW - Prosodic boundary KW - Phrase-final lengthening KW - Pause KW - f0 peaks KW - Production KW - Perception KW - German Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2017.01.002 SN - 0095-4470 VL - 61 SP - 71 EP - 92 PB - Elsevier CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Passow, Susanne A1 - Westerhausen, Rene A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Hugdahl, Kenneth A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Lindenberger, Ulman A1 - Li, Shu-Chen T1 - Human aging compromises attentional control of auditory perception JF - Psychology and aging N2 - Older adults often experience hearing difficulties in multitalker situations. Attentional control of auditory perception is crucial in situations where a plethora of auditory inputs compete for further processing. We combined an intensity-modulated dichotic listening paradigm with attentional manipulations to study adult age differences in the interplay between perceptual saliency and attentional control of auditory processing. When confronted with two competing sources of verbal auditory input, older adults modulated their attention less flexibly and were more driven by perceptual saliency than younger adults. These findings suggest that aging severely impairs the attentional regulation of auditory perception. KW - aging KW - auditory perception KW - attention KW - dichotic listening KW - hearing Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025667 SN - 0882-7974 VL - 27 IS - 1 SP - 99 EP - 105 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Passow, Susanne A1 - Westerhausen, Rene A1 - Hugdahl, Kenneth A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Lindenberger, Ulman A1 - Li, Shu-Chen T1 - Electrophysiological correlates of adult age differences in attentional control of auditory processing JF - Cerebral cortex N2 - In addition to sensory decline, age-related losses in auditory perception also reflect impairments in attentional modulation of perceptual saliency. Using an attention and intensity-modulated dichotic listening paradigm, we investigated electrophysiological correlates of processing conflicts between attentional focus and perceptual saliency in 25 younger and 26 older adults. Participants were instructed to attend to the right or left ear, and perceptual saliency was manipulated by varying the intensities of both ears. Attentional control demand was higher in conditions when attentional focus and perceptual saliency favored opposing ears than in conditions without such conflicts. Relative to younger adults, older adults modulated their attention less flexibly and were more influenced by perceptual saliency. Our results show, for the first time, that in younger adults a late negativity in the event-related potential (ERP) at fronto-central and parietal electrodes was sensitive to perceptual-attentional conflicts during auditory processing (N450 modulation effect). Crucially, the magnitude of the N450 modulation effect correlated positively with task performance. In line with lower attentional flexibility, the ERP waveforms of older adults showed absence of the late negativity and the modulation effect. This suggests that aging compromises the activation of the frontoparietal attentional network when processing the competing and conflicting auditory information. KW - aging KW - attention KW - auditory perception KW - conflict monitoring KW - ERP Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhs306 SN - 1047-3211 SN - 1460-2199 VL - 24 IS - 1 SP - 249 EP - 260 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Cary ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Passow, Susanne A1 - Müller, Maike A1 - Westerhausen, Rene A1 - Hugdahl, Kenneth A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Lindenberger, Ulman A1 - Li, Shu-Chen T1 - Development of attentional control of verbal auditory perception from middle to late childhood - comparisons to healthy aging JF - Developmental psychology N2 - Multitalker situations confront listeners with a plethora of competing auditory inputs, and hence require selective attention to relevant information, especially when the perceptual saliency of distracting inputs is high. This study augmented the classical forced-attention dichotic listening paradigm by adding an interaural intensity manipulation to investigate developmental differences in the interplay between perceptual saliency and attentional control during auditory processing between early and middle childhood. We found that older children were able to flexibly focus on instructed auditory inputs from either the right or the left ear, overcoming the effects of perceptual saliency. In contrast, younger children implemented their attentional focus less efficiently. Direct comparisons of the present data with data from a recently published study of younger and older adults from our group suggest that younger children and older adults show similar levels of performance. Critically, follow-up comparisons revealed that younger children's performance restrictions reflect difficulties in attentional control only, whereas older adults' performance deficits also reflect an exaggerated reliance on perceptual saliency. We conclude that auditory attentional control improves considerably from middle to late childhood and that auditory attention deficits in healthy aging cannot be reduced to a simple reversal of child developmental improvements. KW - child development KW - attentional control KW - auditory perception KW - aging KW - dichotic listening Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031207 SN - 0012-1649 VL - 49 IS - 10 SP - 1982 EP - 1993 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mühlenbeck, Cordelia Anna A1 - Pritsch, Carla A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Telkemeyer, Silke A1 - Liebal, Katja T1 - Attentional bias to facial expressions of different emotions BT - a cross-cultural comparison of ≠Akhoe Hai||om and German children and adolescents JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - The attentional bias to negative information enables humans to quickly identify and to respond appropriately to potentially threatening situations. Because of its adaptive function, the enhanced sensitivity to negative information is expected to represent a universal trait, shared by all humans regardless of their cultural background. However, existing research focuses almost exclusively on humans from Western industrialized societies, who are not representative for the human species. Therefore, we compare humans from two distinct cultural contexts: adolescents and children from Germany, a Western industrialized society, and from the not equal Akhoe Hai parallel to om, semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers in Namibia. We predicted that both groups show an attentional bias toward negative facial expressions as compared to neutral or positive faces. We used eye-tracking to measure their fixation duration on facial expressions depicting different emotions, including negative (fear, anger), positive (happy), and neutral faces. Both Germans and the not equal Akhoe Hai parallel to om gazed longer at fearful faces, but shorter on angry faces, challenging the notion of a general bias toward negative emotions. For happy faces, fixation durations varied between the two groups, suggesting more flexibility in the response to positive emotions. Our findings emphasize the need for placing research on emotion perception into an evolutionary, cross-cultural comparative framework that considers the adaptive significance of specific emotions, rather than differentiating between positive and negative information, and enables systematic comparisons across participants from diverse cultural backgrounds. KW - attentional bias KW - fear bias KW - emotions KW - facial expressions KW - cross-cultural comparison KW - not equal Akhoe Hai parallel to om KW - Germans KW - adolescents Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00795 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 11 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mériau, Katja A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Kazzer, Philipp A1 - Prehn, Kristin A1 - Villringer, Arno A1 - van der Meer, Elke A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. T1 - Insular activity during passive viewing of aversive stimuli reflects individual differences in state negative affect N2 - People differ with regard to how they perceive, experience, and express negative affect. While trait negative affect reflects a stable, sustained personality trait, state negative affect represents a stimulus limited and temporally acute emotion. So far, little is known about the neural systems mediating the relationship between negative affect and acute emotion processing. To address this issue we investigated in a healthy female sample how individual differences in state negative affect are reflected in changes in blood oxygen level-dependent responses during passive viewing of emotional stimuli. To assess autonomic arousal we simultaneously recorded changes in skin conductance level. At the psychophysiological level we found increased skin conductance level in response to aversive relative to neutral pictures. However, there was no association of state negative affect with skin conductance level. At the neural level we found that high state negative affect was associated with increased left insular activity during passive viewing of aversive stimuli. The insula has been implicated in interoceptive processes and in the integration of sensory, visceral, and affective information thus contributing to subjective emotional experience. Greater recruitment of the insula in response to aversive relative to neutral stimuli in subjects with high state negative affect may represent increased processing of salient aversive stimuli. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02782626 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2008.05.006 SN - 0278-2626 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mériau, Katja A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Kazzer, Philipp A1 - Prehn, Kristin A1 - Lammers, Claas-Hinrich A1 - van der Meer, Elke A1 - Villringer, Arno A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. T1 - A neural network reflecting individual differences in cognitive processing of emotions during perceptual decision making Y1 - 2006 SN - 1053-8119 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mériau, Katja A1 - Kazzer, Philipp A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Prehn, Kristin A1 - Lammers, Claas-Hinrich A1 - Villringer, Arno A1 - Heekeren, Hauke T1 - Neural correlates of individual differences in the ability to identify and communicate one's emotional state Y1 - 2005 SN - 0898-929X ER - TY - GEN A1 - Mell, Thomas A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Marschner, Alexander A1 - Villringer, Arno A1 - Reischies, Friedel M. A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. T1 - Altered function of ventral striatum during reward-based decision making in old age N2 - Normal aging is associated with a decline in different cognitive domains and local structural atrophy as well as decreases in dopamine concentration and receptor density. To date, it is largely unknown how these reductions in dopaminergic neurotransmission affect human brain regions responsible for reward-based decision making in older adults. Using a learning criterion in a probabilistic object reversal task, we found a learning stage by age interaction in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dIPFC) during decision making. While young adults recruited the dlPFC in an early stage of learning reward associations, older adults recruited the dlPFC when reward associations had already been learned. Furthermore, we found a reduced change in ventral striatal BOLD signal in older as compared to younger adults in response to high probability rewards. Our data are in line with behavioral evidence that older adults show altered stimulus-reward learning and support the view of an altered fronto-striatal interaction during reward-based decision making in old age, which contributes to prolonged learning of reward associations. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - paper 182 KW - aging KW - fMRI KW - reward association learning KW - ventral striatum KW - decision making KW - dorsolateral prefrontal cortex Y1 - 2009 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-45235 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mell, Thomas A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Marschner, Alexander A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Villringer, Arno A1 - Reischies, Friedel M. T1 - Effect of aging on stimulus-reward association learning N2 - The flexible learning of stimulus-reward associations when required by situational context is essential for everyday behavior. Older adults experience a progressive decline in several cognitive functions and show deficiencies in neuropsychological tasks requiring flexible adaptation to external feedback, which could be related to impairments in reward association learning. To study the effect of aging on stimulus-reward association learning 20 young and 20 older adults performed a probabilistic object reversal task (pORT) along with a battery of tests assessing executive functions and general intellectual abilities. The pORT requires learning and reversing associations between actions and their outcomes. Older participants collected fewer points, needed more trials to reach the learning criterion, and completed less blocks successfully compared to young adults. This difference remained statistically significant after correcting for the age effect of other tests assessing executive functions. This suggests that there is an age-related difference in reward association learning as measured using the pORT, which is not closely related to other executive functions with respect to the age effect. In human aging, structural alterations of reward detecting structures and functional changes of the dopaminergic as well as the serotonergic system might contribute to the deficit in reward association learning observed in this study. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved Y1 - 2005 SN - 0028-3932 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mehnert, Jan A1 - Akhrif, Atae A1 - Telkemeyer, Silke A1 - Rossi, Sonja A1 - Schmitz, Christoph H. A1 - Steinbrink, Jens A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Obrig, Hellmuth A1 - Neufang, Susanne T1 - Developmental changes in brain activation and functional connectivity during response inhibition in the early childhood brain JF - Brain and development : official journal of the Japanese Society of Child Neurology N2 - Response inhibition is an attention function which develops relatively early during childhood. Behavioral data suggest that by the age of 3, children master the basic task requirements for the assessment of response inhibition but performance improves substantially until the age of 7. The neuronal mechanisms underlying these developmental processes, however, are not well understood. In this study, we examined brain activation patterns and behavioral performance of children aged between 4 and 6 years compared to adults by applying a go/no-go paradigm during near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) brain imaging. We furthermore applied task-independent functional connectivity measures to the imaging data to identify maturation of intrinsic neural functional networks. We found a significant group x condition related interaction in terms of inhibition-related reduced right fronto-parietal activation in children compared to adults. In contrast, motor-related activation did not differ between age groups. Functional connectivity analysis revealed that in the children's group, short-range coherence within frontal areas was stronger, and long-range coherence between frontal and parietal areas was weaker, compared to adults. Our findings show that in children aged from 4 to 6 years fronto-parietal brain maturation plays a crucial part in the cognitive development of response inhibition. KW - Optical tomography KW - NIRS KW - Response inhibition KW - Functional connectivity KW - Development KW - Early childhood Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.braindev.2012.11.006 SN - 0387-7604 SN - 1872-7131 VL - 35 IS - 10 SP - 894 EP - 904 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Marschner, Alexander A1 - Mell, Thomas A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Villringer, Arno A1 - Reischies, Friedel M. A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. T1 - Reward-based decision-making and aging Y1 - 2005 SN - 0361-9230 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Marimon Tarter, Mireia A1 - Hofmann, Andrea A1 - Veríssimo, Joao Marques A1 - Männel, Claudia A1 - Friederici, Angela Dorkas A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Children’s Learning of Non-adjacent Dependencies Using a Web-Based Computer Game Setting T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Infants show impressive speech decoding abilities and detect acoustic regularities that highlight the syntactic relations of a language, often coded via non-adjacent dependencies (NADs, e.g., is singing). It has been claimed that infants learn NADs implicitly and associatively through passive listening and that there is a shift from effortless associative learning to a more controlled learning of NADs after the age of 2 years, potentially driven by the maturation of the prefrontal cortex. To investigate if older children are able to learn NADs, Lammertink et al. (2019) recently developed a word-monitoring serial reaction time (SRT) task and could show that 6–11-year-old children learned the NADs, as their reaction times (RTs) increased then they were presented with violated NADs. In the current study we adapted their experimental paradigm and tested NAD learning in a younger group of 52 children between the age of 4–8 years in a remote, web-based, game-like setting (whack-a-mole). Children were exposed to Italian phrases containing NADs and had to monitor the occurrence of a target syllable, which was the second element of the NAD. After exposure, children did a “Stem Completion” task in which they were presented with the first element of the NAD and had to choose the second element of the NAD to complete the stimuli. Our findings show that, despite large variability in the data, children aged 4–8 years are sensitive to NADs; they show the expected differences in r RTs in the SRT task and could transfer the NAD-rule in the Stem Completion task. We discuss these results with respect to the development of NAD dependency learning in childhood and the practical impact and limitations of collecting these data in a web-based setting. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 766 KW - non-adjacent dependencies KW - rule learning KW - web-based KW - implicit learning KW - serial reaction time (SRT) task KW - SRT Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-550834 SN - 1866-8364 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Marimon Tarter, Mireia A1 - Hofmann, Andrea A1 - Veríssimo, Joao Marques A1 - Männel, Claudia A1 - Friederici, Angela Dorkas A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Children’s Learning of Non-adjacent Dependencies Using a Web-Based Computer Game Setting JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Infants show impressive speech decoding abilities and detect acoustic regularities that highlight the syntactic relations of a language, often coded via non-adjacent dependencies (NADs, e.g., is singing). It has been claimed that infants learn NADs implicitly and associatively through passive listening and that there is a shift from effortless associative learning to a more controlled learning of NADs after the age of 2 years, potentially driven by the maturation of the prefrontal cortex. To investigate if older children are able to learn NADs, Lammertink et al. (2019) recently developed a word-monitoring serial reaction time (SRT) task and could show that 6–11-year-old children learned the NADs, as their reaction times (RTs) increased then they were presented with violated NADs. In the current study we adapted their experimental paradigm and tested NAD learning in a younger group of 52 children between the age of 4–8 years in a remote, web-based, game-like setting (whack-a-mole). Children were exposed to Italian phrases containing NADs and had to monitor the occurrence of a target syllable, which was the second element of the NAD. After exposure, children did a “Stem Completion” task in which they were presented with the first element of the NAD and had to choose the second element of the NAD to complete the stimuli. Our findings show that, despite large variability in the data, children aged 4–8 years are sensitive to NADs; they show the expected differences in r RTs in the SRT task and could transfer the NAD-rule in the Stem Completion task. We discuss these results with respect to the development of NAD dependency learning in childhood and the practical impact and limitations of collecting these data in a web-based setting. KW - non-adjacent dependencies KW - rule learning KW - web-based KW - implicit learning KW - serial reaction time (SRT) task KW - SRT Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.734877 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lausberg, Hedda A1 - Kazzer, Philipp A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Pantomiming tool use with an imaginary tool in hand as compared to demonstration with tool in hand specifically modulates the left middle and superior temporal gyri JF - Cortex : a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behaviour N2 - Neuropsychological lesion studies evidence the necessity to differentiate between various forms of tool-related actions such as real tool use, tool use demonstration with tool in hand and without physical target object, and pantomime without tool in hand. However, thus far, neuroimaging studies have primarily focused only on investigating tool use pantomimes. The present fMRI study investigates pantomime without tool in hand as compared to tool use demonstration with tool in hand in order to explore patterns of cerebral signal modulation associated with acting with imaginary tools in hand. Fifteen participants performed with either hand (i) tool use pantomime with an imaginary tool in hand in response to visual tool presentation and (ii) tool use demonstration with tool in hand in response to visual-tactile tool presentation. In both conditions, no physical target object was present. The conjunction analysis of the right and left hands executions of tool use pantomime relative to tool use demonstration yielded significant activity in the left middle and superior temporal lobe. In contrast, demonstration relative to pantomime revealed large bihemispherically distributed homologous areas of activity. Thus far, fMRI studies have demonstrated the relevance of the left middle and superior temporal gyri in viewing, naming, and matching tools and related actions and contexts. Since in our study all these factors were equally (ir)relevant both in the tool use pantomime and the tool use demonstration conditions, the present findings enhance the knowledge about the function of these brain regions in tool-related cognitive processes. The two contrasted conditions only differ regarding the fact that the pantomime condition requires the individual to act with an imaginary tool in hand. Therefore, we suggest that the left middle and superior temporal gyri are specifically involved in integrating the projected mental image of a tool in the execution of a tool-specific movement concept. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Tool use pantomime KW - Tool use demonstration KW - Mental image KW - Left middle and superior temporal gyri KW - Hemispheric specialization Y1 - 2015 SN - 0010-9452 SN - 1973-8102 VL - 71 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Elsevier CY - Milano ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Lausberg, H. A1 - Kazzer, Philipp A1 - Heekeren, Hauke A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Differential cortical mechanisms underlying tool use, pantomime, and body-part-as-object use T2 - European journal of neurology : the official journal of the European Federation of Neurological Societies Y1 - 2012 SN - 1351-5101 VL - 19 IS - 9 SP - 78 EP - 78 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kerr, James Allen A1 - Hesselmann, Guido A1 - Raeling, Romy A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Sterzer, Philipp T1 - Choice of analysis pathway dramatically affects statistical outcomes in breaking continuous flash suppression JF - Scientific reports N2 - Breaking Continuous Flash Suppression (bCFS) has been adopted as an appealing means to study human visual awareness, but the literature is beclouded by inconsistent and contradictory results. Although previous reviews have focused chiefly on design pitfalls and instances of false reasoning, we show in this study that the choice of analysis pathway can have severe effects on the statistical output when applied to bCFS data. Using a representative dataset designed to address a specific controversy in the realm of language processing under bCFS, namely whether psycholinguistic variables affect access to awareness, we present a range of analysis methods based on real instances in the published literature, and indicate how each approach affects the perceived outcome. We provide a summary of published bCFS studies indicating the use of data transformation and trimming, and highlight that more compelling analysis methods are sparsely used in this field. We discuss potential interpretations based on both classical and more complex analyses, to highlight how these differ. We conclude that an adherence to openly available data and analysis pathways could provide a great benefit to this field, so that conclusions can be tested against multiple analyses as standard practices are updated. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03396-3 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 7 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Huttenlauch, Clara A1 - Beer, Carola de A1 - Hanne-Kloth, Sandra A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Production of prosodic cues in coordinate name sequences addressing varying interlocutors JF - Laboratory phonology N2 - Prosodic boundaries can be used to disambiguate the syntactic structure of coordinated name sequences (coordinates). To answer the question whether disambiguating prosody is produced in a situationally dependent or independent manner and to contribute to our understanding of the nature of the prosody-syntax link, we systematically explored variability in the prosody of boundary productions of coordinates evoked by different contextual settings in a referential communication task. Our analysis focused on prosodic boundaries produced to distinguish sequences with different syntactic structures (i.e., with or without internal grouping of the constituents). In German, these prosodic boundaries are indicated by three major prosodic cues: f0-range, final lengthening, and pause. In line with the Proximity/Anti-Proximity principle of the syntax-prosody model by Kentner and Fery (2013), speakers clearly use all three cues for constituent grouping and prosodically mark groups within and at their right boundary, indicating that prosodic phrasing is not a local phenomenon. Intra-individually, we found a rather stable prosodic pattern across contexts. However, inter-individually speakers differed from each other with respect to the prosodic cue combinations that they (consistently) used to mark the boundaries. Overall, our data speak in favour of a close link between syntax and prosody and for situational independence of disambiguating prosody. KW - Prosodic boundaries KW - prosodic cues KW - coordinates KW - varying interlocutors KW - variability KW - f0 KW - duration KW - pre-final lengthening KW - pause Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/labphon.221 SN - 1868-6346 SN - 1868-6354 VL - 12 IS - 1 PB - Ubiquity Press CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia A1 - Wellmann, Caroline A1 - Petrone, Caterina A1 - Truckenbrodt, Hubert A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Brain response to prosodic boundary cues depends on boundary position JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Prosodic information is crucial for spoken language comprehension and especially for syntactic parsing, because prosodic cues guide the hearer's syntactic analysis. The time course and mechanisms of this interplay of prosody and syntax are not yet well-understood. In particular, there is an ongoing debate whether local prosodic cues are taken into account automatically or whether they are processed in relation to the global prosodic context in which they appear. The present study explores whether the perception of a prosodic boundary is affected by its position within an utterance. In an event-related potential (PRP) study we tested if the brain response evoked by the prosodic boundary differs when the boundary occurs early in a list of three names connected by conjunctions (i.e., after the first name) as compared to later in the utterance (i.e., after the second name). A closure positive shift (CPS)-marking the processing of a prosodic phrase boundary-was elicited for stimuli with a late boundary, but not for stimuli with an early boundary. This result is further evidence for an immediate integration of prosodic information into the parsing of an utterance. In addition, it shows that the processing of prosodic boundary cues depends on the previously processed information from the preceding prosodic context. KW - prosodic boundaries KW - event-related potentials KW - closure positive shift KW - speech perception KW - prosody Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00421 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 4 IS - 28 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne 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 - 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 - Hilton, Matthew A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Kinematic boundary cues modulate 12-month-old infants’ segmentation of action sequences BT - an ERP study JF - Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience N2 - Human infants can segment action sequences into their constituent actions already during the first year of life. However, work to date has almost exclusively examined the role of infants' conceptual knowledge of actions and their outcomes in driving this segmentation. The present study examined electrophysiological correlates of infants' processing of lower-level perceptual cues that signal a boundary between two actions of an action sequence. Specifically, we tested the effect of kinematic boundary cues (pre-boundary lengthening and pause) on 12-month-old infants' (N = 27) processing of a sequence of three arbitrary actions, performed by an animated figure. Using the Event-Related Potential (ERP) approach, evidence of a positivity following the onset of the boundary cues was found, in line with previous work that has found an ERP positivity (Closure Positive Shift, CPS) related to boundary processing in auditory stimuli and action sequences in adults. Moreover, an ERP negativity (Negative Central, Nc) indicated that infants' encoding of the post-boundary action was modulated by the presence or absence of prior boundary cues. We therefore conclude that 12-month-old infants are sensitive to lower-level perceptual kinematic boundary cues, which can support segmentation of a continuous stream of movement into individual action units. KW - Action segmentation KW - Kinematic boundary processing KW - ERPs KW - Boundary cues Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107916 SN - 0028-3932 SN - 1873-3514 VL - 159 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - 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 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Schmidt, Helge A1 - Schwintowski, Hans-Peter A1 - Villringer, Arno T1 - An fMRI study of simple ethical decision-making Y1 - 2003 UR - http://gateway.ovid.com/ovidweb.cgi?T=JS&NEWS=N&PAGE=toc&SEARCH=00001756-000000000- 00000.kc&LINKTYPE=asBody&LINKPOS=1&D=yrovft SN - 0959-4965 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Schmidt, Helge A1 - Prehn, Kristin A1 - Schwintowski, Hans-Peter A1 - Villringer, Arno T1 - Influence of bodily harm on neural correlates of semantic and moral decision-making N2 - Moral decision-making is central to everyday social life because the evaluation of the actions of another agent or our own actions made with respect to the norms and values guides our behavior in a community. There is previous evidence that the presence of bodily harm-even if irrelevant for a decision-may affect the decision-making, process. While recent neuroimaging studies found a common neural substrate of moral decision-making, the role of bodily harm has not been systematically studied so far. Here we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how behavioral and neural correlates of semantic and moral decision-making processes are modulated by the presence of direct bodily harm or violence in the stimuli. Twelve participants made moral and semantic decisions about sentences describing actions of agents that either contained bodily harm or not and that could easily be judged as being good or bad or correct/incorrect, respectively. During moral and semantic decision-making, the presence of bodily harm resulted in faster response times (RT) and weaker activity in the temporal poles relative to trials devoid of bodily harm/violence, indicating a processing advantage and reduced processing depth for violence-related linguistic stimuli. Notably, there was no increase in activity in the amygdala and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) in response to trials containing bodily harm. These findings might be a correlate of limited generation of the semantic and emotional context in the anterior temporal poles during the evaluation of actions of another agent related to violence that is made with respect to the norms and values guiding our behavior in a community. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved Y1 - 2005 SN - 1053-8119 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heekeren, Hauke R. A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Marschner, Alexander A1 - Mell, Thomas A1 - Villringer, Arno A1 - Reischies, Friedel M. T1 - Role of ventral striatum in reward-based decision making Y1 - 2007 SN - 0959-4965 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Gotzner, Nicole A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Spalek, Katharina T1 - The impact of focus particles on the recognition and rejection of contrastive alternatives T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The semantics of focus particles like only requires a set of alternatives (Rooth, 1992). In two experiments, we investigated the impact of such particles on the retrieval of alternatives that are mentioned in the prior context or unmentioned. The first experiment used a probe recognition task and showed that focus particles interfere with the recognition of mentioned alternatives and the rejection of unmentioned alternatives relative to a condition without a particle. A second lexical decision experiment demonstrated priming effects for mentioned and unmentioned alternatives (compared with an unrelated condition) while focus particles caused additional interference effects. Overall, our results indicate that focus particles trigger an active search for alternatives and lead to a competition between mentioned alternatives, unmentioned alternatives, and the focused element. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 517 KW - focus particles KW - alternative-set semantics KW - probe recognition task KW - lexical decision task KW - competitive inhibition Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-413420 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 517 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gotzner, Nicole A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Spalek, Katharina T1 - The impact of focus particles on the recognition and rejection of contrastive alternatives JF - Language and cognition : an interdisciplinary journal of language and cognitive science N2 - The semantics of focus particles like only requires a set of alternatives (Rooth, 1992). In two experiments, we investigated the impact of such particles on the retrieval of alternatives that are mentioned in the prior context or unmentioned. The first experiment used a probe recognition task and showed that focus particles interfere with the recognition of mentioned alternatives and the rejection of unmentioned alternatives relative to a condition without a particle. A second lexical decision experiment demonstrated priming effects for mentioned and unmentioned alternatives (compared with an unrelated condition) while focus particles caused additional interference effects. Overall, our results indicate that focus particles trigger an active search for alternatives and lead to a competition between mentioned alternatives, unmentioned alternatives, and the focused element. KW - focus particles KW - alternative-set semantics KW - probe recognition task KW - lexical decision task KW - competitive inhibition Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2015.25 SN - 1866-9808 SN - 1866-9859 VL - 8 SP - 59 EP - 95 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fieder, Nora A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Abdel Rahman, Rasha T1 - A close call BT - Interference from semantic neighbourhood density and similarity in language production JF - Memory & cognition N2 - 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. KW - Language production KW - Semantic processing KW - Lexical selection KW - Semantic neighbours Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-018-0856-y SN - 0090-502X SN - 1532-5946 VL - 47 IS - 1 SP - 145 EP - 168 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Dix, Annika A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - van der Meer, Elke T1 - The role of fluid intelligence and learning in analogical reasoning: How to become neurally efficient? JF - Neurobiology of learning and memory N2 - This study on analogical reasoning evaluates the impact of fluid intelligence on adaptive changes in neural efficiency over the course of an experiment and specifies the underlying cognitive processes. Grade 10 students (N = 80) solved unfamiliar geometric analogy tasks of varying difficulty. Neural efficiency was measured by the event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the alpha band, an indicator of cortical activity. Neural efficiency was defined as a low amount of cortical activity accompanying high performance during problem-solving. Students solved the tasks faster and more accurately the higher their FI was. Moreover, while high FI led to greater cortical activity in the first half of the experiment, high FI was associated with a neurally more efficient processing (i.e., better performance but same amount of cortical activity) in the second half of the experiment. Performance in difficult tasks improved over the course of the experiment for all students while neural efficiency increased for students with higher but decreased for students with lower fluid intelligence. Based on analyses of the alpha sub-bands, we argue that high fluid intelligence was associated with a stronger investment of attentional resource in the integration of information and the encoding of relations in this unfamiliar task in the first half of the experiment (lower-2 alpha band). Students with lower fluid intelligence seem to adapt their applied strategies over the course of the experiment (i.e., focusing on task-relevant information; lower-1 alpha band). Thus, the initially lower cortical activity and its increase in students with lower fluid intelligence might reflect the overcoming of mental overload that was present in the first half of the experiment. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. KW - Analogical reasoning KW - Short-term learning KW - Fluid intelligence KW - Neural efficiency KW - Alpha ERD/ERS Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2016.07.019 SN - 1074-7427 SN - 1095-9564 VL - 134 SP - 236 EP - 247 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Czypionka, Anna A1 - Spalek, Katharina A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Krifka, Manfred T1 - On the interplay of object animacy and verb type during sentence comprehension in German: ERP evidence from the processing of transitive dative and accusative constructions JF - Linguistics : an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences N2 - Comprehension of transitive sentences relies on different kinds of information, like word order, case marking, and animacy contrasts between arguments. When no formal cues like case marking or number congruency are available, a contrast in animacy helps the parser to decide which argument is the grammatical subject and which the object. Processing costs are enhanced when neither formal cues nor animacy contrasts are available in a transitive sentence. We present an ERP study on the comprehension of grammatical transitive German sentences, manipulating animacy contrasts between subjects and objects as well as the verbal case marking pattern. Our study shows strong object animacy effects even in the absence of violations, and in addition suggests that this effect of object animacy is modulated by the verbal case marking pattern. KW - sentence comprehension KW - animacy KW - case marking KW - ERP KW - German Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2017-0031 SN - 0024-3949 SN - 1613-396X VL - 55 SP - 1383 EP - 1433 PB - De Gruyter Mouton CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cannestra, Andrew F. A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Obrig, Hellmuth A1 - Villringer, Arno A1 - Toga, Arthur W. T1 - Functional assessment of Broca's area using near infrared spectroscopy in humans Y1 - 2003 UR - http://gateway.ovid.com/ovidweb.cgi?T=JS&NEWS=N&PAGE=toc&SEARCH=00001756-000000000- 00000.kc&LINKTYPE=asBody&LINKPOS=1&D=yrovft SN - 0959-4965 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Burmester, Juliane A1 - Spalek, Katharina A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Context updating during sentence comprehension: The effect of aboutness topic JF - Brain & language : a journal of the neurobiology of language KW - Information structure KW - Discourse context KW - Aboutness topic KW - Sentence processing KW - Word order variation KW - ERP KW - Late positivity KW - Syntax-Discourse Model Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2014.08.001 SN - 0093-934X SN - 1090-2155 VL - 137 SP - 62 EP - 76 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - GEN A1 - Burmester, Juliane A1 - Sauermann, Antje A1 - Spalek, Katharina A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Sensitivity to salience BT - linguistic vs. visual cues affect sentence processing and pronoun resolution T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - 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. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 454 KW - topic status KW - eye gaze KW - visual context KW - reading times KW - antecedent choice Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-412838 IS - 454 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Burmester, Juliane A1 - Sauermann, Antje A1 - Spalek, Katharina A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Sensitivity to salience BT - linguistic vs. visual cues affect sentence processing and pronoun resolution JF - Language, cognition and neuroscience N2 - 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. KW - Topic status KW - eye gaze KW - visual context KW - reading times KW - antecedent choice Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2018.1428758 SN - 2327-3798 SN - 2327-3801 VL - 33 IS - 6 SP - 784 EP - 801 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bos, Laura S. A1 - Hanne, Sandra A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Bastiaanse, Roelien T1 - Losing track of time? Processing of time reference inflection in agrammatic and healthy speakers of German JF - Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience N2 - Background: Individuals with agrammatic aphasia (IWAs) have problems with grammatical decoding of tense inflection. However, these difficulties depend on the time frame that the tense refers to. Verb morphology with reference to the past is more difficult than with reference to the non-past, because a link needs to be made to the past event in discourse, as captured in the PAst Discourse Linking Hypothesis (PADILIH; Bastiaanse, R., Bamyaci, E., Hsu, C., Lee, J., Yarbay Duman, T., Thompson, C. K., 2011. Time reference in agrammatic aphasia: A cross-linguistic study. J. Neurolinguist. 24, 652-673). With respect to reference to the (non-discourse-linked) future, data so far indicate that IWAs experience less difficulties as compared to past time reference (Bastiaanse, R., Bamyaci, E., Hsu, C., Lee, J., Yarbay Duman, T., Thompson, C. K., 2011. Time reference in agrammatic aphasia: A cross-linguistic study. J. Neurolinguist. 24, 652-673), supporting the assumptions of the PADILIH. Previous online studies of time reference in aphasia used methods such as reaction times analysis (e.g., Faroqi-Shah, Y., Dickey, M. W., 2009. On-line processing of tense and temporality in agrammatic aphasia. Brain Lang. 108, 97-111). So far, no such study used eye-tracking, even though this technique can bring additional insights (Burchert, F., Hanne, S., Vasishth, S., 2013. Sentence comprehension disorders in aphasia: the concept of chance performance revisited. Aphasiology 27, 112-125, doi:10.1080/02687038.2012.730603). Aims: This study investigated (1) whether processing of future and past time reference inflection differs between non-brain-damaged individuals (NBDs) and IWAs, and (2) underlying mechanisms of time reference comprehension failure by IWAs. Results and discussion: NBDs scored at ceiling and significantly higher than the IWAs. IWAs had below-ceiling performance on the future condition, and both participant groups were faster to respond to the past than to the future condition. These differences are attributed to a pre-existing preference to look at a past picture, which has to be overcome. Eye movement patterns suggest that both groups interpret future time reference similarly, while IWAs show a delay relative to NBDs in interpreting past time reference inflection. The eye tracking results support the PADILIH, because processing reference to the past in discourse syntax requires additional resources and thus, is problematic and delayed for people with aphasia. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Visual-world paradigm KW - Spoken language comprehension KW - Time reference KW - Morphology KW - Agrammatism KW - Eye-tracking KW - Aphasia KW - Discourse linking Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.10.026 SN - 0028-3932 SN - 1873-3514 VL - 65 SP - 180 EP - 190 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bartha-Doering, Lisa A1 - Alexopoulos, Johanna A1 - Giordano, Vito A1 - Stelzer, Lisa A1 - Kainz, Theresa A1 - Benavides-Varela, Silvia A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Klebermass-Schrehof, Katrin A1 - Olischar, Monika A1 - Seidl, Rainer Otis A1 - Berger, Angelika T1 - Absence of neural speech discrimination in preterm infants at term-equivalent age JF - Developmental cognitive neuroscience : a journal for cognitive, affective and social developmental neuroscience N2 - Children born preterm are at higher risk to develop language deficits. Auditory speech discrimination deficits may be early signs for language developmental problems. The present study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to investigate neural speech discrimination in 15 preterm infants at term-equivalent age compared to 15 full term neonates. The full term group revealed a significantly greater hemodynamic response to forward compared to backward speech within the left hemisphere extending from superior temporal to inferior parietal and middle and inferior frontal areas. In contrast, the preterm group did not show differences in their hemodynamic responses during forward versus backward speech, thus, they did not discriminate speech from nonspeech. Groups differed significantly in their responses to forward speech, whereas they did not differ in their responses to backward speech. The significant differences between groups point to an altered development of the functional network underlying language acquisition in preterm infants as early as in term-equivalent age. KW - Near-infrared spectroscopy KW - Preterm birth KW - Newborn infants KW - Language development KW - Speech discrimination Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100679 SN - 1878-9293 SN - 1878-9307 VL - 39 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER -