@article{KadyamusumaDeBleserMayer2011, author = {Kadyamusuma, McLoddy R. and De Bleser, Ria and Mayer, J{\"o}rg}, title = {Perceptual discrimination of Shona lexical tones and low-pass filtered speech by left and right hemisphere damaged patients}, series = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {25}, journal = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, number = {5}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hove}, issn = {0268-7038}, doi = {10.1080/02687038.2010.540336}, pages = {576 -- 592}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Background: While the role of the right hemisphere (RH) in prosodic processing is prominent, research on the perception of lexical tones has shown that left hemisphere damaged (LHD) patients are more impaired than right hemisphere damaged (RHD) patients. Dichotic listening and imaging studies with healthy speakers of tone languages demonstrate that at least at the phonemic and lexical level, prosody is processed in the left hemisphere (LH) when the variations in pitch are phonemically distinctive. There is no report available yet on the perceptual discrimination of a Bantu language in patients after unilateral brain damage. Aims: We addressed the question of how well Shona aphasic patients and right hemisphere damaged patients perceive pitch contrasts in Shona lexical words and also in their homologous low-pass filtered counterparts. We also sought to discover the validity of the current hypotheses on hemispheric lateralisation particularly the hypothesis on hemispheric lateralisation based on language function to account for the Shona data. Methods Procedures: A total of 7 LHD and 7 RHD patients and 14 healthy controls participated in two discrimination tasks that examined perception of lexical tone in (a) bisyllabic Shona words and (b) low-pass filtered stimuli. In both tasks the participants were tasked with judging the pitch as the same or different in 120 bisyllabic words and 120 low-pass filtered stimuli. Outcomes Results: The results demonstrated that the tonal discrimination of the LHD group was more reduced in comparison to the RHD group and control participants. However, the performance of the RHD patients was not error free relative to the control participants, although significantly better than the LHD patients in both tasks. Conclusions: At least for the phonemic and lexical levels, brain damage to the dominant hemisphere results in lexical tone impairment for LHD patients, and cognitive load processing results in a subdued but good performance for RHD patients. The LH is therefore dominant for processing tone when it is lexically distinctive.}, language = {en} } @article{PetroneTruckenbrodtWellmannetal.2017, author = {Petrone, Caterina and Truckenbrodt, Hubert and Wellmann, Caroline and Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia and Wartenburger, Isabell and H{\"o}hle, Barbara}, title = {Prosodic boundary cues in German}, series = {Journal of phonetics}, volume = {61}, journal = {Journal of phonetics}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {London}, issn = {0095-4470}, doi = {10.1016/j.wocn.2017.01.002}, pages = {71 -- 92}, year = {2017}, abstract = {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.}, language = {en} } @article{WeymarVenturaBortWendtetal.2019, author = {Weymar, Mathias and Ventura-Bort, Carlos and Wendt, Julia and Lischke, Alexander}, title = {Behavioral and neural evidence of enhanced long-term memory for untrustworthy faces}, series = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {9}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, publisher = {Macmillan Publishers Limited}, address = {London}, issn = {2045-2322}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-019-55705-7}, pages = {8}, year = {2019}, abstract = {In daily life, we automatically form impressions of other individuals on basis of subtle facial features that convey trustworthiness. Because these face-based judgements influence current and future social interactions, we investigated how perceived trustworthiness of faces affects long-term memory using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the current study, participants incidentally viewed 60 neutral faces differing in trustworthiness, and one week later, performed a surprise recognition memory task, in which the same old faces were presented intermixed with novel ones. We found that after one week untrustworthy faces were better recognized than trustworthy faces and that untrustworthy faces prompted early (350-550 ms) enhanced frontal ERP old/new differences (larger positivity for correctly remembered old faces, compared to novel ones) during recognition. Our findings point toward an enhanced long-lasting, likely familiarity-based, memory for untrustworthy faces. Even when trust judgments about a person do not necessarily need to be accurate, a fast access to memories predicting potential harm may be important to guide social behaviour in daily life.}, language = {en} } @article{vanOmmenBollAvetisyanLarrazaetal.2020, author = {van Ommen, Sandrien and Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Larraza, Saioa and Wellmann, Caroline and Bijeljac-Babic, Ranka and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Nazzi, Thierry}, title = {Language-specific prosodic acquisition}, series = {Journal of memory and language: JML}, volume = {112}, journal = {Journal of memory and language: JML}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0749-596X}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2020.104108}, pages = {16}, year = {2020}, abstract = {This study compares the development of prosodic processing in French- and German-learning infants. The emergence of language-specific perception of phrase boundaries was directly tested using the same stimuli across these two languages. French-learning (Experiment 1, 2) and German-learning 6- and 8-month-olds (Experiment 3) listened to the same French noun sequences with or without major prosodic boundaries ([Loulou et Manou] [et Nina]; [Loulou et Manou et Nina], respectively). The boundaries were either naturally cued (Experiment 1), or cued exclusively by pitch and duration (Experiment 2, 3). French-learning 6- and 8-month-olds both perceived the natural boundary, but neither perceived the boundary when only two cues were present. In contrast, German-learning infants develop from not perceiving the two-cue boundary at 6 months to perceiving it at 8 months, just like German-learning 8-month-olds listening to German (Wellmann, Holzgrefe, Truckenbrodt, Wartenburger, \& Hohle, 2012). In a control experiment (Experiment 4), we found little difference between German and French adult listeners, suggesting that later, French listeners catch up with German listeners. Taken together, these cross-linguistic differences in the perception of identical stimuli provide direct evidence for language-specific development of prosodic boundary perception.}, language = {en} }