@article{PassowWesterhausenHugdahletal.2014, author = {Passow, Susanne and Westerhausen, Rene and Hugdahl, Kenneth and Wartenburger, Isabell and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Lindenberger, Ulman and Li, Shu-Chen}, title = {Electrophysiological correlates of adult age differences in attentional control of auditory processing}, series = {Cerebral cortex}, volume = {24}, journal = {Cerebral cortex}, number = {1}, publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press}, address = {Cary}, issn = {1047-3211}, doi = {10.1093/cercor/bhs306}, pages = {249 -- 260}, year = {2014}, abstract = {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.}, language = {en} } @article{RaelingHolzgrefeLangSchroederetal.2015, author = {R{\"a}ling, Romy and Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia and Schr{\"o}der, Astrid and Wartenburger, Isabell}, title = {On the influence of typicality and age of acquisition on semantic processing: Diverging evidence from behavioural and ERP responses}, series = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, volume = {75}, journal = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0028-3932}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.05.031}, pages = {186 -- 200}, year = {2015}, abstract = {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.}, language = {en} } @article{SpalekGotznerWartenburger2014, author = {Spalek, Katharina and Gotzner, Nicole and Wartenburger, Isabell}, title = {Not only the apples}, series = {Journal of memory and language : JML}, volume = {70}, journal = {Journal of memory and language : JML}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {San Diego}, issn = {0749-596X}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2013.09.001}, pages = {68 -- 84}, year = {2014}, abstract = {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.}, language = {en} } @misc{BurmesterSauermannSpaleketal.2018, author = {Burmester, Juliane and Sauermann, Antje and Spalek, Katharina and Wartenburger, Isabell}, title = {Sensitivity to salience}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {454}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-412838}, pages = {19}, year = {2018}, abstract = {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.}, language = {en} } @misc{GotznerWartenburgerSpalek2016, author = {Gotzner, Nicole and Wartenburger, Isabell and Spalek, Katharina}, title = {The impact of focus particles on the recognition and rejection of contrastive alternatives}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {517}, issn = {1866-8364}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-41342}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-413420}, pages = {37}, year = {2016}, abstract = {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.}, language = {en} } @article{BurmesterSpalekWartenburger2014, author = {Burmester, Juliane and Spalek, Katharina and Wartenburger, Isabell}, title = {Context updating during sentence comprehension: The effect of aboutness topic}, series = {Brain \& language : a journal of the neurobiology of language}, volume = {137}, journal = {Brain \& language : a journal of the neurobiology of language}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {San Diego}, issn = {0093-934X}, doi = {10.1016/j.bandl.2014.08.001}, pages = {62 -- 76}, year = {2014}, language = {en} } @article{HeekerenWartenburgerSchmidtetal.2005, author = {Heekeren, Hauke R. and Wartenburger, Isabell and Schmidt, Helge and Prehn, Kristin and Schwintowski, Hans-Peter and Villringer, Arno}, title = {Influence of bodily harm on neural correlates of semantic and moral decision-making}, issn = {1053-8119}, year = {2005}, abstract = {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}, language = {en} } @article{MellHeekerenMarschneretal.2005, author = {Mell, Thomas and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Marschner, Alexander and Wartenburger, Isabell and Villringer, Arno and Reischies, Friedel M.}, title = {Effect of aging on stimulus-reward association learning}, issn = {0028-3932}, year = {2005}, abstract = {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}, language = {en} } @article{WartenburgerHeekerenBurchertetal.2004, author = {Wartenburger, Isabell and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Burchert, Frank and Heinemann, Steffi and De Bleser, Ria and Villringer, Arno}, title = {Neural correlates of syntactic transformations}, issn = {1065-9471}, year = {2004}, abstract = {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}, language = {en} } @article{WartenburgerBurchertHeekerenetal.2003, author = {Wartenburger, Isabell and Burchert, Frank and Heekeren, Hauke R. and De Bleser, Ria and Villringer, Arno}, title = {Grammaticality judgments on sentences with and without movement of phrasal constituents : an event-related fMRI study}, issn = {0911-6044}, year = {2003}, language = {en} }