@article{DrenhausBeimGrabenSaddyetal.2006,
  author    = {Drenhaus, Heiner and Beim Graben, Peter and Saddy, Douglas and Frisch, Stefan},
  title     = {Diagnosis and repair of negative polarity constructions in the light of symbolic resonance analysis},
  issn      = {0093-934X},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.bandl.2005.05.001},
  year      = {2006},
  abstract  = {in a post hoc analysis, we investigate differences in event-related potentials of two studies (Drenhaus et al., 2004, to appear; Saddy et al., 2004) by using the symbolic resonance analysis (Beim Graben \& Kurths, 2003). The studies under discussion, examined the failure to license a negative polarity item (NPI) in German: Saddy et al. (2004a) reported an N400 component when the NPI was not accurately licensed by negation; Drenhaus et al. (2004, to appear) considered additionally the influence of constituency of the licensor in NPI constructions. A biphasic N400-P600 response was found for the two induced violations (the lack of licensor and the inaccessibility of negation in a relative clause). The symbolic resonance analysis (SRA) revealed an effect in the P600 time window for the data in Saddy et al., which was not found by using the averaging technique. The SRA of the ERPs in Drenhaus et al., showed that the P600 components are distinguishable concerning the amplitude and latency. It was smaller and earlier in the condition where the licensor is inaccessible, compared to the condition without negation in the string. Our findings suggest that the failure in licensing NPIs is not exclusively related to semantic integration costs (N400). The elicited P600 components reflect differences in syntactic processing. Our results confirm and replicate the effects of the traditional voltage average analysis and show that the SRA is a useful tool to reveal and pull apart ERP differences which are not evident using the traditional voltage average analysis.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{AllefeldFrischSchlesewsky2005,
  author    = {Allefeld, Carsten and Frisch, Stefan and Schlesewsky, Matthias},
  title     = {Detection of early cognitive processing by event-related phase synchronization analysis},
  issn      = {0959-4965},
  year      = {2005},
  abstract  = {In order to investigate the temporal characteristics of cognitive processing, we apply multivariate phase synchronization analysis to event-related potentials. The experimental design combines a semantic incongruity in a sentence context with a physical mismatch (color change). In the ERP average, these result in an N400 component and a P300-like positivity, respectively. Synchronization analysis shows an effect of global desynchronization in the theta band around 288 ms after stimulus presentation for the semantic incongruity, while the physical mismatch elicits an increase of global synchronization in the alpha band around 204 ms. Both of these effects clearly precede those in the ERP aver-age. Moreover, the delay between synchronization effect and ERP component correlates with the complexity Of the cognitive processes. (C) 2005 Lippincott Williams Wilkins},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{BeimGrabenFrischFinketal.2005,
  author    = {Beim Graben, Peter and Frisch, Stefan and Fink, A. and Saddy, Douglas and Kurths, J{\"u}rgen},
  title     = {Topographic voltage and coherence mapping of brain potentials by means of the symbolic resonance analysis},
  issn      = {1539-3755},
  year      = {2005},
  abstract  = {We apply the recently developed symbolic resonance analysis to electroencephalographic measurements of event- related brain potentials (ERPs) in a language processing experiment by using a three-symbol static encoding with varying thresholds for analyzing the ERP epochs, followed by a spin-flip transformation as a nonlinear filter. We compute an estimator of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the symbolic dynamics measuring the coherence of threshold-crossing events. Hence, we utilize the inherent noise of the EEG for sweeping the underlying ERP components beyond the encoding thresholds. Plotting the SNR computed within the time window of a particular ERP component (the N400) against the encoding thresholds, we find different resonance curves for the experimental conditions. The maximal differences of the SNR lead to the estimation of optimal encoding thresholds. We show that topographic brain maps of the optimal threshold voltages and of their associated coherence differences are able to dissociate the underlying physiological processes, while corresponding maps gained from the customary voltage averaging technique are unable to do so},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{FrischSchlesewskyWegner2005,
  author    = {Frisch, Stefan and Schlesewsky, Matthias and Wegner, H.},
  title     = {The interaction of morphological case and word order constraints : Cross-linguistic ERP evidence from German, Russian and Finnish},
  year      = {2005},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{DrenhausBeimGrabenSaddyetal.2005,
  author    = {Drenhaus, Heiner and Beim Graben, Peter and Saddy, Douglas and Frisch, Stefan},
  title     = {On the processing of negative polarity constructions revealed by the symbolic resonance analysis},
  issn      = {0898-929X},
  year      = {2005},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{FrischBeimGraben2005,
  author    = {Frisch, Stefan and Beim Graben, Peter},
  title     = {Finding needles in haystacks : Symbolic resonance analysis of event-related potentials unveils different processing demands},
  year      = {2005},
  abstract  = {Previous ERP studies have found an N400-P600 pattern in sentences in which the number of arguments does not match the number of arguments that the verb can take. In the present study, we elaborate on this question by investigating whether the case of the mismatching object argument in German (accusative/direct object versus dative/ indirect object) affects processing differently. In general, both types of mismatches elicited a biphasic N400 P600 response in the ERP. However, traditional voltage average analysis was unable to reveal differences between the two mismatching conditions, that is, between a mismatching accusative versus dative. Therefore, we employed a recently developed method on ER-P data analysis, the symbolic resonance analysis (SRA), where EEG epochs are symbolically encoded in sequences of three symbols depending on a given parameter, the encoding threshold. We found a larger proportion of threshold crossing events with negative polarity in the N400 time window for a mismatching dative argument compared to a mismatching accusative argument. By contrast, the proportion of threshold crossing events with positive polarity was smaller for dative in the P600 time window. We argue that this difference is due to the phenomenon of "free dative" in German. This result also shows that the SRA provides a useful tool for revealing ERP differences that cannot be discovered using the traditional voltage average analysis. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{FrischSchlesewsky2005,
  author    = {Frisch, Stefan and Schlesewsky, Matthias},
  title     = {The resolution of case conflicts from a neurophysiological perspective},
  year      = {2005},
  abstract  = {We present two ERP experiments examining the resolution of language processing conflicts involving the multidimensional linguistic feature case, which determines processing in both syntactic and interpretive respects. Ungrammatical German structures with two identically case-marked arguments (double subject or double object constructions) were tested. In earlier studies, double subject constructions have been shown to elicit a biphasic pattern consisting of an N400 effect (a marker of thematic integration problems) followed by a P600 effect (a marker of syntactic ill-formedness). Here, we compare double nominative (subject case) constructions with double datives (indirect object case; Experiment 1) and double accusatives (direct object case; Experiment 2). All types of double case ungrammaticalities elicited a biphasic N400-P600 response. However, double datives differed from double nominatives in that they elicited a larger P600, suggesting that the ill-formedness is more salient in structures with two dative arguments. Double accusatives, by contrast, elicited a stronger N400 in comparison to double nominatives, suggesting that they induce more severe semantic-thematic integration problems. The results demonstrate that the human language comprehension system is sensitive to fine grained linguistic distinctions between different cases and utilizes these in its attempts to solve processing conflicts. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{FrischBeimGrabenSchlesewsky2004,
  author    = {Frisch, Stefan and Beim Graben, Peter and Schlesewsky, Matthias},
  title     = {Parallelizing grammatical functions : P600 and P345 reflect different cost of reanalysis},
  issn      = {0218-1274},
  year      = {2004},
  abstract  = {It is well-known from psycholinguistic literature that the human language processing system exhibits preferences when sentence constituents are ambiguous with respect to their grammatical function. Generally, many theories assume that an interpretation towards the subject is preferred in such cases. Later disambiguations which contradict such a preference induce enhanced processing difficulty (i.e. reanalysis) which reflects itself in late positive deflections (P345/P600) in event-related brain potentials (ERPs). In the case of phoric elements such as pronouns, a second strategy is known according to which an ambiguous pronoun preferentially receives the grammatical function that its antecedent has (parallel function strategy). In an ERP study, we show that this strategy can in principle override the general subject preference strategy (known for both pronominal and nonpronominal constituents) and induce an object preference, in case that the pronoun's antecedent is itself an object. Interestingly, the revision of a subject preference leads to a P600 component, whereas the revision of an object preference induces an earlier positivity (P345). In order to show that the latter component is indeed a positivity and not an N400-like negativity in the same time range, we apply an additional analysis based on symbolic dynamics which allows to determine the polarity of an ERP effect on purely methodological grounds. With respect to the two positivities, we argue that the latency differences reflect qualitative differences in the reanalysis processes},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{FrischHahneFriederici2004,
  author    = {Frisch, Stefan and Hahne, A. and Friederici, A. D.},
  title     = {Word category and verb-argument structure information in the dynamics of parsing},
  issn      = {0010-0277},
  year      = {2004},
  abstract  = {One of the core issues in psycholinguistic research concerns the relationship between word category information and verb-argument structure (e.g. transitivity) information of verbs in the process of sentence parsing. In two experiments (visual versus auditory presentation) using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we addressed this question by presenting sentences in which the critical word simultaneously realized both a word category and a transitivity violation. ERPs for sentences with both types of violation clustered with the patterns for sentences with a word category violation only, but were different from the patterns elicited by argument structure violations in isolation, since only the latter elicited an N400 ERP component. The finding that an argument structure violation evoked an N400 only if the phrase structure of the respective sentence was correct suggests that a successful integration of the word category information of a verb functionally precedes the application of its argument structure information. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{BeimGrabenJurishSaddyetal.2004,
  author    = {Beim Graben, Peter and Jurish, B. and Saddy, Douglas and Frisch, Stefan},
  title     = {Language processing by dynamical systems},
  issn      = {0218-1274},
  year      = {2004},
  abstract  = {We describe a part of the stimulus sentences of a German language processing ERP experiment using a context- free grammar and represent different processing preferences by its unambiguous partitions. The processing is modeled by deterministic pushdown automata. Using a theorem proven by Moore, we map these automata onto discrete time dynamical systems acting at the unit square, where the processing preferences are represented by a control parameter. The actual states of the automata are rectangles lying in the unit square that can be interpreted as cylinder sets in the context of symbolic dynamics theory. We show that applying a wrong processing preference to a certain input string leads to an unwanted invariant set in the parsers dynamics. Then, syntactic reanalysis and repair can be modeled by a switching of the control parameter - in analogy to phase transitions observed in brain dynamics. We argue that ERP components are indicators of these bifurcations and propose an ERP-like measure of the parsing model},
  language  = {en}
}