@phdthesis{Raeling2016,
  author    = {R{\"a}ling, Romy},
  title     = {Age of acquisition and semantic typicality effects},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-95943},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {x, 133},
  year      = {2016},
  abstract  = {Age of acquisition (AOA) is a psycholinguistic variable that significantly influences behavioural measures (response times and accuracy rates) in tasks that require lexical and semantic processing. Its origin is - unlike the origin of semantic typicality (TYP), which is assumed at the semantic level - controversially discussed. Different theories propose AOA effects to originate either at the semantic level or at the link between semantics and phonology (lemma-level). The dissertation aims at investigating the influence of AOA and its interdependence with the semantic variable TYP on particularly semantic processing in order to pinpoint the origin of AOA effects. Therefore, three studies have been conducted that considered the variables AOA and TYP in semantic processing tasks (category verifications and animacy decisions) by means of behavioural and partly electrophysiological (ERP) data and in different populations (healthy young and elderly participants and in semantically impaired individuals with aphasia (IWA)). The behavioural and electrophysiological data of the three studies provide evidence for distinct processing levels of the variables AOA and TYP. The data further support previous assumptions on a semantic origin for TYP but question the same for AOA. The findings, however, support an origin of AOA effects at the transition between the word form (phonology) and the semantic level that can be captured at the behavioural but not at the electrophysiological level.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Linnik2016,
  author    = {Linnik, Anastasia},
  title     = {Coherence and structure in aphasic and non-aphasic spoken discourse},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-42320},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-423202},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {xii, 106},
  year      = {2016},
  abstract  = {Discourse production is crucial for communicative success and is in the core of aphasia assessment and treatment. Coherence differentiates discourse from a series of utterances/sentences; it is internal unity and connectedness, and, as such, perhaps the most inherent property of discourse. It is unclear whether people with aphasia, who experience various language production difficulties, preserve the ability to produce coherent discourse. A more general question of how coherence is established and represented linguistically has been addressed in the literature, yet remains unanswered. This dissertation presents an investigation of discourse production in aphasia and the linguistic mechanisms of establishing coherence.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{LissonHernandez2022,
  author    = {Liss{\´o}n Hern{\´a}ndez, Paula J.},
  title     = {Computational models of sentence comprehension in aphasia},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-55548},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-555487},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {vi, 159},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {It is well-known that individuals with aphasia (IWA) have difficulties understanding sentences that involve non-adjacent dependencies, such as object relative clauses or passives (Caplan, Baker, \& Dehaut, 1985; Caramazza \& Zurif, 1976). A large body of research supports the view that IWA's grammatical system is intact, and that comprehension difficulties in aphasia are caused by a processing deficit, such as a delay in lexical access and/or in syntactic structure building (e.g., Burkhardt, Pi{\~n}ango, \& Wong, 2003; Caplan, Michaud, \& Hufford, 2015; Caplan, Waters, DeDe, Michaud, \& Reddy, 2007; Ferrill, Love, Walenski, \& Shapiro, 2012; Hanne, Burchert, De Bleser, \& Vasishth, 2015; Love, Swinney, Walenski, \& Zurif, 2008). The main goal of this dissertation is to computationally investigate the processing sources of comprehension impairments in sentence processing in aphasia. In this work, prominent theories of processing deficits coming from the aphasia literature are implemented within two cognitive models of sentence processing -the activation-based model (Lewis \& Vasishth, 2005) and the direct-access model (McEl- ree, 2000)-. These models are two different expressions of the cue-based retrieval theory (Lewis, Vasishth, \& Van Dyke, 2006), which posits that sentence processing is the result of a series of iterative retrievals from memory. These two models have been widely used to account for sentence processing in unimpaired populations in multiple languages and linguistic constructions, sometimes interchangeably (Parker, Shvarts- man, \& Van Dyke, 2017). However, Nicenboim and Vasishth (2018) showed that when both models are implemented in the same framework and fitted to the same data, the models yield different results, because the models assume different data- generating processes. Specifically, the models hold different assumptions regarding the retrieval latencies. The second goal of this dissertation is to compare these two models of cue-based retrieval, using data from individuals with aphasia and control participants. We seek to answer the following question: Which retrieval mechanism is more likely to mediate sentence comprehension? We model 4 subsets of existing data: Relative clauses in English and German; and control structures and pronoun resolution in German. The online data come from either self-paced listening experiments, or visual-world eye-tracking experiments. The offline data come from a complementary sentence-picture matching task performed at the end of the trial in both types of experiments. The two competing models of retrieval are implemented in the Bayesian framework, following Nicenboim and Vasishth (2018). In addition, we present a modified version of the direct-acess model that - we argue - is more suitable for individuals with aphasia. This dissertation presents a systematic approach to implement and test verbally- stated theories of comprehension deficits in aphasia within cognitive models of sen- tence processing. The conclusions drawn from this work are that (a) the original direct-access model (as implemented here) cannot account for the full pattern of data from individuals with aphasia because it cannot account for slow misinterpretations; and (b) an activation-based model of retrieval can account for sentence comprehension deficits in individuals with aphasia by assuming a delay in syntactic structure building, and noise in the processing system. The overall pattern of results support an activation-based mechanism of memory retrieval, in which a combination of processing deficits, namely slow syntax and intermittent deficiencies, cause comprehension difficulties in individuals with aphasia.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{LauerCorsten2023,
  author    = {Lauer, Norina and Corsten, Sabine},
  title     = {Die Bedeutung von Peers f{\"u}r die soziale Teilhabe von Menschen mit Aphasie},
  series = {Spektrum Patholinguistik 16},
  journal   = {Spektrum Patholinguistik 16},
  number    = {16},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-559-0},
  issn      = {1866-9433},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-61340},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-613404},
  pages     = {15 -- 37},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {Menschen mit Aphasie erleben erhebliche Einbußen in sozialer Teilhabe und Lebensqualit{\"a}t. Peer-to-Peer-Unterst{\"u}tzung durch Selbsthilfeangebote oder Peer-Befriending-Maßnahmen kann sich positiv auf Partizipation und psychisches Wohlbefinden auswirken. Mit dem Projekt shalk konnte gezeigt werden, dass von Betroffenen geleitete Selbsthilfegruppen maßgeblich zu Selbstwerterleben und verbesserter Lebensqualit{\"a}t der Leitungspersonen und der Gruppenteilnehmenden beitragen k{\"o}nnen. Um einen Austausch zwischen Betroffenen auch jenseits des Gruppensettings zu erm{\"o}glichen, k{\"o}nnen digitale Medien genutzt werden. Im Projekt PeerPAL wird ein f{\"u}r Menschen mit Aphasie angepasstes digitales soziales Netzwerk (Smartphone-App) zur virtuellen Vernetzung und pers{\"o}nlichen Begegnung entwickelt und evaluiert. Erste Daten weisen darauf hin, dass die Betroffenen die App nutzen k{\"o}nnen und mit Design und Funktionen zufrieden sind. Auswirkungen auf die Lebensqualit{\"a}t werden aktuell untersucht. Sprachtherapeut:innen nehmen in der Peer-to-Peer-Unterst{\"u}tzung insofern eine zentrale Rolle ein, als dass sie Betroffene in entsprechende Angebote einf{\"u}hren und sie mittels abgestufter Begleitung an die eigenst{\"a}ndige Nutzung heranf{\"u}hren.},
  language  = {de}
}
@phdthesis{Lorenz2004,
  author    = {Lorenz, Antje},
  title     = {Die Behandlung von Wortabrufst{\"o}rungen bei Aphasie : eine methodenvergleichende Studie zum Bildbenennen},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-0001747},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  year      = {2004},
  abstract  = {In einer multiplen Einzelfallstudie mit zehn aphasischen Patienten wurde die Wirksamkeit eines semantischen und eines phonologischen Therapieansatzes zur Behandlung von Wortabrufst{\"o}rungen verglichen. Detaillierte Einzelfalluntersuchungen erm{\"o}glichten die Diagnose der zugrundeliegenden funktionalen St{\"o}rungen bei jedem Patienten. Auf diese Weise konnten die erzielten Therapieeffekte auf die individuellen kognitiv-neurolinguistischen St{\"o}rungsmuster bezogen werden. Im Vordergrund der Therapie stand in beiden Ans{\"a}tzen das m{\"u}ndliche Benennen von Objektabbildungen mit unterschiedlichen Arten von Hilfen. W{\"a}hrend in der semantischen Therapie Teilaspekte des semantischen Zielkonzepts als Benennhilfen eingesetzt wurden, handelte es sich bei den phonologischen Hilfen um Teilinformationen der Zielwortform. Bei der Erhebung von spezifischen Therapieeffekten wurde zwischen itemspezifischen und item{\"u}bergreifenden Verbesserungen sowie kurz- und langfristigen Effekten auf die m{\"u}ndlichen Benennleistungen unterschieden. Dabei wurden neben den quantitativen Verbesserungen (\% korrekt) auch die qualitativen Effekte (Fehlertypen) der beiden Ans{\"a}tze ber{\"u}cksichtigt, und es wurden Transfereffekte in die Spontansprache der Patienten untersucht. Zus{\"a}tzlich wurden auch die Soforteffekte der verschiedenen Benennhilfen in den Therapiesitzungen erhoben. Im Methodenvergleich zeigte sich, dass die phonologische Therapiephase kurzfristig bei der Mehrzahl der Patienten signifikante Verbesserungen beim Bildbenennen bewirkte, diese Effekte haben sich jedoch {\"u}berwiegend als nicht stabil erwiesen. Im Gegensatz dazu erwies sich die semantische Therapiephase auch als langfristig effektiv. Im Unterschied dazu erwiesen sich die phonologischen Benennhilfen bei fast allen Patienten als unmittelbar effektiver als die semantischen Benennhilfen. Somit waren die Soforteffekte der Hilfetypen in den Therapiesitzungen kein sicherer Indikator f{\"u}r die Dauer der Gesamteffekte einer Therapiephase. Außerdem zeigte sich nicht bei allen Patienten ein direkter Zusammenhang zwischen der Art ihrer zugrundeliegenden funktionalen St{\"o}rung und den erzielten Therapieeffekten. Einerseits profitierten Patienten mit erhaltenen semantischen Verarbeitungsleistungen von der semantischen Therapie, andererseits zeigten sich signifikante phonologische Therapieeffekte bei Patienten mit zentral-semantischen St{\"o}rungen. Die Wirkmechanismen der beiden Therapieans{\"a}tze werden unter Ber{\"u}cksichtigung unterschiedlicher kognitiv-neurolinguistischer Theorien zum m{\"u}ndlichen Wortabrufprozess beim Bildbenennen interpretiert.},
  language  = {de}
}
@article{Steinberg2023,
  author    = {Steinberg, Romy Simone},
  title     = {Sag mir, wo die W{\"o}rter sind …},
  series = {Spektrum Patholinguistik 16},
  journal   = {Spektrum Patholinguistik 16},
  number    = {16},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-559-0},
  issn      = {1866-9433},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-61346},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-613468},
  pages     = {103 -- 106},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {Dieser Beitrag gibt einen Einblick in die ehrenamtliche Arbeit mit Menschen mit Aphasie und deren Angeh{\"o}rigen. Vor sieben Jahren gr{\"u}ndete Romy Steinberg gemeinsam mit ihrem Mann, der selbst von Aphasie betroffen ist, den Chor „AphaSingers". Jeden Monat findet sich der Chor zu einem Workshop-Tag zusammen, der viel mehr als nur die Gesangsprobe beinhaltet. Partizipation umfasst den Austausch miteinander, sch{\"o}ne gemeinsame Erlebnisse und Zusammenhalt. All dies bietet dieser Chor den Mitgliedern und erntet hierf{\"u}r viel Anerkennung und Dankbarkeit.},
  language  = {de}
}
@misc{ClahsenSiegmuellerPenkeetal.2013,
  author    = {Clahsen, Harald and Siegm{\"u}ller, Julia and Penke, Martina and Schr{\"o}der, Astrid and Hofmann, Janine and Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia and Skerra, Antje and Adani, Flavia and Gagarina, Natalʹja Vladimirovna and Schr{\"o}ter, Carolin and Frieg, Hendrike and Belke, Eva and Schwab, Susanne and Seifert, Susanne and Watko, Petra and Obendrauf, Tanja and Trauntschnig, Mike and Gasteiger-Klicpera, Barbara and Adelt, Anne and Hanne, Sandra and Burchert, Frank and Swietza, Romy and Doppelbauer, Lea and Dralle, Jenny and Purat, Patricia and Webersinke, Dorothea and Schwytay, Jeannine and Stadie, Nicole and Hoppe, Carina and Heide, Judith and Marusch, Tina and von der Malsburg, Titus Raban and Bastiaanse, Roelien and Schultheiss, Corinna and Nahrstaedt, Holger and Schauer, Thomas and Seidl, Rainer Ottis and Rath, Elisa},
  title     = {Spektrum Patholinguistik = Schwerpunktthema: Labyrinth Grammatik: Therapie von syntaktischen St{\"o}rungen bei Kindern und Erwachsenen},
  number    = {6},
  editor    = {Fritzsche, Tom and Meyer, Corinna B. and Adelt, Anne and Roß, Jennifer},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  organization    = {Verband f{\"u}r Patholinguistik e. V. (vpl)},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-270-4},
  issn      = {1869-3822},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-6612},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-67659},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {Das Herbsttreffen Patholinguistik wird seit 2007 j{\"a}hrlich vom Verband f{\"u}r Patholinguistik e.V. (vpl) durchgef{\"u}hrt. Das 6. Herbsttreffen mit dem Schwerpunktthema "Labyrinth Grammatik: Therapie von syntaktischen St{\"o}rungen bei Kindern und Erwachsenen" fand am 17.11.2012 in Potsdam statt. Im vorliegenden Tagungsband finden sich alle Beitr{\"a}ge der Veranstaltung: die vier Hauptvortr{\"a}ge zum Schwerpunkthema, die Vortr{\"a}ge aus Praxis und Forschung von vier Patholinguistinnen in der Reihe Spektrum Patholinguistik sowie die Abstracts der Posterpr{\"a}sentation.},
  language  = {de}
}
@misc{SchroederGrimmSchulzetal.2017,
  author    = {Schr{\"o}der, Astrid and Grimm, Angela and Schulz, Petra and Heide, Judith and Frank, Ulrike and Wahl, Michael and Lampe, Leonie and Fieder, Nora and Krajenbrink, Trudy and Nickels, Lyndsey and Bykova, Ksenia and Wilzek, Alexa and van den Engl-Hoek, Lenie and Huckabee, Maggie-Lee and Balzer, Julia and Ebert, Susanne and Kaps, Hella and Matteschk, Maria and Tzsch{\"o}ckel, Katharina Andrea and Dressel, Katharina and Kr{\"o}ger, Bernd J. and Diwoky, Laura Cassandra and Breitenstein, Sarah and Bruno, Giulia and Lassotta, Romy and Adani, Flavia and Ferchland, Lisa and Baatz, Charlotte and Netzebandt, Jonka and Heyde, Cornelia J. and Cleland, Joanne and Scobbie, James M. and Roxburgh, Zoe and Schmidt, Jessica},
  title     = {Spektrum Patholinguistik Band 10. Schwerpunktthema: Panorama Patholinguistik: Sprachwissenschaft trifft Sprachtherapie},
  number    = {10},
  editor    = {Adelt, Anne and Yetim, {\"O}zlem and Otto, Constanze and Fritzsche, Tom},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  organization    = {Verband f{\"u}r Patholinguistik e. V. (vpl)},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-404-3},
  issn      = {1866-9085},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-39701},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-397019},
  pages     = {vii, 225 S.},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {Das 10. Herbsttreffen Patholinguistik mit dem Schwerpunktthema »Panorama Patholinguistik: Sprachwissenschaft trifft Sprachtherapie« fand am 19.11.2016 in Potsdam statt. Das Herbsttreffen wird seit 2007 j{\"a}hrlich vom Verband f{\"u}r Patholinguistik e.V. (vpl) durchgef{\"u}hrt. Der vorliegende Tagungsband beinhaltet die vier Hauptvortr{\"a}ge zum Schwerpunktthema sowie Beitr{\"a}ge zu den Kurzvortr{\"a}gen »Patholinguistik im Fokus« und der Posterpr{\"a}sentationen zu weiteren Themen aus der sprachtherapeutischen Forschung und Praxis.},
  language  = {de}
}
@phdthesis{Adelt2024,
  author    = {Adelt, Anne},
  title     = {The Relativized Minimality approach to comprehension of German relative clauses in aphasia},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-62331},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-623312},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {xiii, 166},
  year      = {2024},
  abstract  = {It is a well-attested finding in head-initial languages that individuals with aphasia (IWA) have greater difficulties in comprehending object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) as compared to subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs). Adopting the linguistically based approach of Relativized Minimality (RM; Rizzi, 1990, 2004), the subject-object asymmetry is attributed to the occurrence of a Minimality effect in ORCs due to reduced processing capacities in IWA (Garraffa \& Grillo, 2008; Grillo, 2008, 2009). For ORCs, it is claimed that the embedded subject intervenes in the syntactic dependency between the moved object and its trace, resulting in greater processing demands. In contrast, no such intervener is present in SRCs. Based on the theoretical framework of RM and findings from language acquisition (Belletti et al., 2012; Friedmann et al., 2009), it is assumed that Minimality effects are alleviated when the moved object and the intervening subject differ in terms of relevant syntactic features. For German, the language under investigation, the RM approach predicts that number (i.e., singular vs. plural) and the lexical restriction [+NP] feature (i.e., lexically restricted determiner phrases vs. lexically unrestricted pronouns) are considered relevant in the computation of Minimality. Greater degrees of featural distinctiveness are predicted to result in more facilitated processing of ORCs, because IWA can more easily distinguish between the moved object and the intervener. This cumulative dissertation aims to provide empirical evidence on the validity of the RM approach in accounting for comprehension patterns during relative clause (RC) processing in German-speaking IWA. For that purpose, I conducted two studies including visual-world eye-tracking experiments embedded within an auditory referent-identification task to study the offline and online processing of German RCs. More specifically, target sentences were created to evaluate (a) whether IWA demonstrate a subject-object asymmetry, (b) whether dissimilarity in the number and/or the [+NP] features facilitates ORC processing, and (c) whether sentence processing in IWA benefits from greater degrees of featural distinctiveness. Furthermore, by comparing RCs disambiguated through case marking (at the relative pronoun or the following noun phrase) and number marking (inflection of the sentence-final verb), it was possible to consider the role of the relative position of the disambiguation point. The RM approach predicts that dissimilarity in case should not affect the occurrence of Minimality effects. However, the case cue to sentence interpretation appears earlier within RCs than the number cue, which may result in lower processing costs in case-disambiguated RCs compared to number-disambiguated RCs. In study I, target sentences varied with respect to word order (SRC vs. ORC) and dissimilarity in the [+NP] feature (lexically restricted determiner phrase vs. pronouns as embedded element). Moreover, by comparing the impact of these manipulations in case- and number-disambiguated RCs, the effect of dissimilarity in the number feature was explored. IWA demonstrated a subject-object asymmetry, indicating the occurrence of a Minimality effect in ORCs. However, dissimilarity neither in the number feature nor in the [+NP] feature alone facilitated ORC processing. Instead, only ORCs involving distinct specifications of both the number and the [+NP] features were well comprehended by IWA. In study II, only temporarily ambiguous ORCs disambiguated through case or number marking were investigated, while controlling for varying points of disambiguation. There was a slight processing advantage of case marking as cue to sentence interpretation as compared to number marking. Taken together, these findings suggest that the RM approach can only partially capture empirical data from German IWA. In processing complex syntactic structures, IWA are susceptible to the occurrence of the intervening subject in ORCs. The new findings reported in the thesis show that structural dissimilarity can modulate sentence comprehension in aphasia. Interestingly, IWA can override Minimality effects in ORCs and derive correct sentence meaning if the featural specifications of the constituents are maximally different, because they can more easily distinguish the moved object and the intervening subject given their reduced processing capacities. This dissertation presents new scientific knowledge that highlights how the syntactic theory of RM helps to uncover selective effects of morpho-syntactic features on sentence comprehension in aphasia, emphasizing the close link between assumptions from theoretical syntax and empirical research.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Zakarias2018,
  author    = {Zakari{\´a}s, Lilla},
  title     = {Transfer effects after working memory training in post-stroke aphasia},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-42360},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-423600},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {178},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Background: Individuals with aphasia after stroke (IWA) often present with working memory (WM) deficits. Research investigating the relationship between WM and language abilities has led to the promising hypothesis that treatments of WM could lead to improvements in language, a phenomenon known as transfer. Although recent treatment protocols have been successful in improving WM, the evidence to date is scarce 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. Aims: We aimed at (a) investigating whether WM can be improved through an adaptive n-back training in IWA (Study 1-3); (b) testing whether WM training leads to near transfer to unpracticed WM tasks (Study 1-3), and far transfer to spoken sentence comprehension (Study 1-3), functional communication (Study 2-3), and memory in daily life in IWA (Study 2-3); and (c) evaluating the methodological quality of existing WM treatments in IWA (Study 3). To address these goals, we conducted two empirical studies - a case-controls study with Hungarian speaking IWA (Study 1) and a multiple baseline study with German speaking IWA (Study 2) - and a systematic review (Study 3). Methods: In Study 1 and 2 participants with chronic, post-stroke aphasia performed an adaptive, computerized n-back training. 'Adaptivity' was implemented by adjusting the tasks' difficulty level according to the participants' performance, ensuring that they always practiced at an optimal level of difficulty. To assess the specificity of transfer effects and to better understand the underlying mechanisms of transfer on spoken sentence comprehension, we included an outcome measure testing specific syntactic structures that have been proposed to involve WM processes (e.g., non-canonical structures with varying complexity). Results: We detected a mixed pattern of training and transfer effects across individuals: five participants out of six significantly improved in the n-back training. Our most important finding is that all six participants improved significantly in spoken sentence comprehension (i.e., far transfer effects). In addition, we also found far transfer to functional communication (in two participants out of three in Study 2) and everyday memory functioning (in all three participants in Study 2), and near transfer to unpracticed n-back tasks (in four participants out of six). Pooled data analysis of Study 1 and 2 showed a significant negative relationship between initial spoken sentence comprehension and the amount of improvement in this ability, suggesting that the more severe the participants' spoken sentence comprehension deficit was at the beginning of training, the more they improved after training. Taken together, we detected both near far and transfer effects in our studies, but the effects varied across participants. The systematic review evaluating the methodological quality of existing WM treatments in stroke IWA (Study 3) showed poor internal and external validity across the included 17 studies. Poor internal validity was mainly due to use of inappropriate design, lack of randomization of study phases, lack of blinding of participants and/or assessors, and insufficient sampling. Low external validity was mainly related to incomplete information on the setting, lack of use of appropriate analysis or justification for the suitability of the analysis procedure used, and lack of replication across participants and/or behaviors. Results in terms of WM, spoken sentence comprehension, and reading are promising, but further studies with more rigorous methodology and stronger experimental control are needed to determine the beneficial effects of WM intervention. Conclusions: Results of the empirical studies suggest that WM can be improved with a computerized and adaptive WM training, and improvements can lead to transfer effects to spoken sentence comprehension and functional communication in some individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia. The fact that improvements were not specific to certain syntactic structures (i.e., non-canonical complex sentences) in spoken sentence comprehension suggest that WM is not involved in the online, automatic processing of syntactic information (i.e., parsing and interpretation), but plays a more general role in the later stage of spoken sentence comprehension (i.e., post-interpretive comprehension). The individual differences in treatment outcomes call for future research to clarify how far these results are generalizable to the population level of IWA. Future studies are needed to identify a few mechanisms that may generalize to at least a subpopulation of IWA as well as to investigate baseline non-linguistic cognitive and language abilities that may play a role in transfer effects and the maintenance of such effects. These may require larger yet homogenous samples.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Pregla2023,
  author    = {Pregla, Dorothea},
  title     = {Variability in sentence processing performance in German people with aphasia and unimpaired German native speakers},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-61420},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-614201},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {171},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {Individuals with aphasia vary in the speed and accuracy they perform sentence comprehension tasks. Previous results indicate that the performance patterns of individuals with aphasia vary between tasks (e.g., Caplan, DeDe, \& Michaud, 2006; Caplan, Michaud, \& Hufford, 2013a). Similarly, it has been found that the comprehension performance of individuals with aphasia varies between homogeneous test sentences within and between sessions (e.g., McNeil, Hageman, \& Matthews, 2005). These studies ascribed the variability in the performance of individuals with aphasia to random noise. This conclusion would be in line with an influential theory on sentence comprehension in aphasia, the resource reduction hypothesis (Caplan, 2012). However, previous studies did not directly compare variability in language-impaired and language-unimpaired adults. Thus, it is still unclear how the variability in sentence comprehension differs between individuals with and without aphasia. Furthermore, the previous studies were exclusively carried out in English. Therefore, the findings on variability in sentence processing in English still need to be replicated in a different language. This dissertation aims to give a systematic overview of the patterns of variability in sentence comprehension performance in aphasia in German and, based on this overview, to put the resource reduction hypothesis to the test. In order to reach the first aim, variability was considered on three different dimensions (persons, measures, and occasions) following the classification by Hultsch, Strauss, Hunter, and MacDonald (2011). At the dimension of persons, the thesis compared the performance of individuals with aphasia and language-unimpaired adults. At the dimension of measures, this work explored the performance across different sentence comprehension tasks (object manipulation, sentence-picture matching). Finally, at the dimension of occasions, this work compared the performance in each task between two test sessions. Several methods were combined to study variability to gain a large and diverse database. In addition to the offline comprehension tasks, the self-paced-listening paradigm and the visual world eye-tracking paradigm were used in this work. The findings are in line with the previous results. As in the previous studies, variability in sentence comprehension in individuals with aphasia emerged between test sessions and between tasks. Additionally, it was possible to characterize the variability further using hierarchical Bayesian models. For individuals with aphasia, it was shown that both between-task and between-session variability are unsystematic. In contrast to that, language-unimpaired individuals exhibited systematic differences between measures and between sessions. However, these systematic differences occurred only in the offline tasks. Hence, variability in sentence comprehension differed between language-impaired and language-unimpaired adults, and this difference could be narrowed down to the offline measures. Based on this overview of the patterns of variability, the resource reduction hypothesis was evaluated. According to the hypothesis, the variability in the performance of individuals with aphasia can be ascribed to random fluctuations in the resources available for sentence processing. Given that the performance of the individuals with aphasia varied unsystematically, the results support the resource reduction hypothesis. Furthermore, the thesis proposes that the differences in variability between language-impaired and language-unimpaired adults can also be explained by the resource reduction hypothesis. More specifically, it is suggested that the systematic changes in the performance of language-unimpaired adults are due to decreasing fluctuations in available processing resources. In parallel, the unsystematic variability in the performance of individuals with aphasia could be due to constant fluctuations in available processing resources. In conclusion, the systematic investigation of variability contributes to a better understanding of language processing in aphasia and thus enriches aphasia research.},
  language  = {en}
}