TY - JOUR A1 - Brandt-Kobele, Oda-Christina A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - The detection of subject-verb agreement violations by German-speaking children: An eye-tracking study JF - Lingua : international review of general linguistics N2 - This study examines the processing of sentences with and without subject verb agreement violations in German-speaking children at three and five years of age. An eye-tracking experiment was conducted to measure whether children's looking behavior was influenced by the grammaticality of the test sentences. The older group of children turned their gaze faster towards a target picture and looked longer at it when the object noun referring to the target was presented in a grammatical sentence with subject verb agreement compared to when the object noun was presented in a sentence in which an agreement violation occurred. The younger group of children displayed less conclusive results, with a tendency to look longer but not faster towards the target picture in the grammatical compared to the ungrammatical condition. This is the first experimental evidence that German-speaking five-year old children are sensitive to subject verb agreement and violations thereof. Our results additionally substantiate that the eye-tracking paradigm is suitable to examine children's sensitivity to subtle grammatical violations. KW - Subject-verb agreement KW - Eye-tracking KW - Language acquisition KW - German Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2013.12.008 SN - 0024-3841 SN - 1872-6135 VL - 144 SP - 7 EP - 20 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam 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 - Hanne, Sandra A1 - Burchert, Frank A1 - De Bleser, Ria A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Sentence comprehension and morphological cues in aphasia: What eye-tracking reveals about integration and prediction JF - Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience N2 - Comprehension of non-canonical sentences can be difficult for individuals with aphasia (IWA). It is still unclear to which extent morphological cues like case marking or verb inflection may influence IWA's performance or even help to override deficits in sentence comprehension. Until now, studies have mainly used offline methods to draw inferences about syntactic deficits and, so far, only a few studies have looked at online syntactic processing in aphasia. We investigated sentence processing in German-speaking IWA by combining an offline (sentence-picture matching) and an online (eye-tracking in the visual-world paradigm) method. Our goal was to determine whether IWA are capable of using inflectional morphology (number-agreement markers on verbs and case markers in noun phrases) as a cue to sentence interpretation. We report results of two visual-world experiments using German reversible SVO and OVS sentences. In each study, there were eight IWA and 20 age-matched controls. Experiment 1 targeted the role of unambiguous case morphology, while Experiment 2 looked at processing of number-agreement cues at the verb in caseambiguous sentences. IWA showed deficits in using both types of morphological markers as a cue to non-canonical sentence interpretation and the results indicate that in aphasia, processing of case-marking cues is more vulnerable as compared to verbagreement morphology. We ascribe this finding to the higher cue reliability of agreement cues, which renders them more resistant against impairments in aphasia. However, the online data revealed that IWA are in principle capable of successfully computing morphological cues, but the integration of morphological information is delayed as compared to age-matched controls. Furthermore, we found striking differences between controls and IWA regarding subject-before-object parsing predictions. While in case-unambiguous sentences IWA showed evidence for early subjectbefore-object parsing commitments, they exhibited no straightforward subject-first prediction in case-ambiguous sentences, although controls did so for ambiguous structures. IWA delayed their parsing decisions in case-ambiguous sentences until unambiguous morphological information, such as a subject-verbnumber-agreement cue, was available. We attribute the results for IWA to deficits in predictive processes based on morphosyntactic cues during sentence comprehension. The results indicate that IWA adopt a wait-and-see strategy and initiate prediction of upcoming syntactic structure only when unambiguous case or agreement cues are available. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Aphasia KW - Sentence comprehension deficits KW - Prediction KW - Eye-tracking KW - Online morpho-syntactic processing KW - Morphological cues Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2014.12.003 SN - 0911-6044 VL - 34 SP - 83 EP - 111 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Garoufi, Konstantina A1 - Staudte, Maria A1 - Koller, Alexander A1 - Crocker, Matthew W. T1 - Exploiting Listener Gaze to Improve Situated Communication in Dynamic Virtual Environments JF - Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society N2 - Beyond the observation that both speakers and listeners rapidly inspect the visual targets of referring expressions, it has been argued that such gaze may constitute part of the communicative signal. In this study, we investigate whether a speaker may, in principle, exploit listener gaze to improve communicative success. In the context of a virtual environment where listeners follow computer-generated instructions, we provide two kinds of support for this claim. First, we show that listener gaze provides a reliable real-time index of understanding even in dynamic and complex environments, and on a per-utterance basis. Second, we show that a language generation system that uses listener gaze to provide rapid feedback improves overall task performance in comparison with two systems that do not use gaze. Aside from demonstrating the utility of listener gaze insituated communication, our findings open the door to new methods for developing and evaluating multi-modal models of situated interaction. KW - Listener gaze KW - Eye-tracking KW - Referential understanding KW - Virtual environments KW - Situated communication Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12298 SN - 0364-0213 SN - 1551-6709 VL - 40 SP - 1671 EP - 1703 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - von der Malsburg, Titus Raban A1 - Angele, Bernhard T1 - False positives and other statistical errors in standard analyses of eye movements in reading JF - Journal of memory and language N2 - In research on eye movements in reading, it is common to analyze a number of canonical dependent measures to study how the effects of a manipulation unfold over time. Although this gives rise to the well-known multiple comparisons problem, i.e. an inflated probability that the null hypothesis is incorrectly rejected (Type I error), it is accepted standard practice not to apply any correction procedures. Instead, there appears to be a widespread belief that corrections are not necessary because the increase in false positives is too small to matter. To our knowledge, no formal argument has ever been presented to justify this assumption. Here, we report a computational investigation of this issue using Monte Carlo simulations. Our results show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, false positives are increased to unacceptable levels when no corrections are applied. Our simulations also show that counter-measures like the Bonferroni correction keep false positives in check while reducing statistical power only moderately. Hence, there is little reason why such corrections should not be made a standard requirement. Further, we discuss three statistical illusions that can arise when statistical power is low, and we show how power can be improved to prevent these illusions. In sum, our work renders a detailed picture of the various types of statistical errors than can occur in studies of reading behavior and we provide concrete guidance about how these errors can be avoided. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. KW - Statistics KW - False positives KW - Null-hypothesis testing KW - Eye-tracking KW - Reading KW - Sentence processing Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2016.10.003 SN - 0749-596X SN - 1096-0821 VL - 94 SP - 119 EP - 133 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Koc-Januchta, Marta A1 - Höffler, Tim A1 - Thoma, Gun-Brit A1 - Prechtl, Helmut A1 - Leutner, Detlev T1 - Visualizers versus verbalizers BT - Effects of cognitive style on learning with texts and pictures - An eye-tracking study JF - Computers in human behavior N2 - This study was conducted in order to examine the differences between visualizers and verbalizers in the way they gaze at pictures and texts while learning. Using a collection of questionnaires, college students were classified according to their visual or verbal cognitive style and were asked to learn about two different, in terms of subject and type of knowledge, topics by means of text-picture combinations. Eye-tracking was used to investigate their gaze behavior. The results show that visualizers spent significantly more time inspecting pictures than verbalizers, while verbalizers spent more time inspecting texts. Results also suggest that both visualizers' and verbalizers' way of learning is active but mostly within areas providing the source of information in line with their cognitive style (pictures or text). Verbalizers tended to enter non-informative, irrelevant areas of pictures sooner than visualizers. The comparison of learning outcomes showed that the group of visualizers achieved better results than the group of verbalizers on a comprehension test. KW - Cognitive style KW - Verbalizer KW - Visualizer KW - Eye-tracking KW - Multimedia learning Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.11.028 SN - 0747-5632 SN - 1873-7692 VL - 68 SP - 170 EP - 179 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - GEN A1 - Marwecki, Sebastian A1 - Wilson, Andrew D. A1 - Ofek, Eyal A1 - Franco, Mar Gonzalez A1 - Holz, Christian T1 - Mise-Unseen BT - Using Eye-Tracking to Hide Virtual Reality Scene Changes in Plain Sight T2 - UIST '19: Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology N2 - Creating or arranging objects at runtime is needed in many virtual reality applications, but such changes are noticed when they occur inside the user's field of view. We present Mise-Unseen, a software system that applies such scene changes covertly inside the user's field of view. Mise-Unseen leverages gaze tracking to create models of user attention, intention, and spatial memory to determine if and when to inject a change. We present seven applications of Mise-Unseen to unnoticeably modify the scene within view (i) to hide that task difficulty is adapted to the user, (ii) to adapt the experience to the user's preferences, (iii) to time the use of low fidelity effects, (iv) to detect user choice for passive haptics even when lacking physical props, (v) to sustain physical locomotion despite a lack of physical space, (vi) to reduce motion sickness during virtual locomotion, and (vii) to verify user understanding during story progression. We evaluated Mise-Unseen and our applications in a user study with 15 participants and find that while gaze data indeed supports obfuscating changes inside the field of view, a change is rendered unnoticeably by using gaze in combination with common masking techniques. KW - Eye-tracking KW - virtual reality KW - change blindness KW - inattentional blindness KW - staging Y1 - 2019 SN - 978-1-4503-6816-2 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3332165.3347919 SP - 777 EP - 789 PB - Association for Computing Machinery CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Söchting, Maximilian A1 - Trapp, Matthias T1 - Controlling image-stylization techniques using eye tracking JF - Science and Technology Publications N2 - With the spread of smart phones capable of taking high-resolution photos and the development of high-speed mobile data infrastructure, digital visual media is becoming one of the most important forms of modern communication. With this development, however, also comes a devaluation of images as a media form with the focus becoming the frequency at which visual content is generated instead of the quality of the content. In this work, an interactive system using image-abstraction techniques and an eye tracking sensor is presented, which allows users to experience diverting and dynamic artworks that react to their eye movement. The underlying modular architecture enables a variety of different interaction techniques that share common design principles, making the interface as intuitive as possible. The resulting experience allows users to experience a game-like interaction in which they aim for a reward, the artwork, while being held under constraints, e.g., not blinking. The co nscious eye movements that are required by some interaction techniques hint an interesting, possible future extension for this work into the field of relaxation exercises and concentration training. KW - Eye-tracking KW - Image Abstraction KW - Image Processing KW - Artistic Image Stylization KW - Interactive Media Y1 - 2020 SN - 2184-4321 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - THES A1 - Pauly, Dennis Nikolas T1 - The effect of noun capitalization when reading German and English N2 - Das Promotionsprojekt hatte als Ziel, die Fragestellung zu beantworten, ob die strukturelle wortinitiale Substantivgroßschreibung, wie sie sich neben dem Deutschen sonst nur noch im Luxemburgischen finden lässt, über eine Funktion verfügt, die dem Leser einen Vorteil bringt. Die übergeordnete Hypothese war, dass ein Vorteil dadurch erreicht wird, dass durch die parafoveale Wahrnehmung der Majuskel bereits eine syntaktische Kategorie, nämlich der Kern einer Nominalgruppe, aktiviert wird. Durch diese Wahrnehmung aus dem Augenwinkel sollte das nachfolgende Substantiv schon vorverarbeitet werden können. Im Ergebnis sollte eine Erleichterung der Satzverarbeitung bewirkt werden, was sich letztlich in insgesamt schnelleren Lese- bzw. Fixationszeiten zeigen sollte. Die Struktur des Projekts beinhaltet drei Studien, die teilweise jeweils unterschiedliche Versuchspersonengruppen umfassten: Studie 1: - Studiendesign: Semantisches Priming mittels sogenannter Holzwegsätze sollten die Funktionsweise der Substantivgroßschreibung für den Leser hervorbringen - Versuchspersonen: Deutsche L1-Sprecher lesen Deutsch Studie 2: - Studiendesign: gleiches Design wie Studie 1, allerdings auf Englisch - Versuchspersonengruppen: Studie 3: 1. Englische L1-Sprecher gänzlich ohne Deutschkenntnisse, 2. englische L1-Sprecher, die regelmäßig deutsche Texte lesen, 3. deutsche L1-Sprecher mit exzellenten Englischkenntnissen. - Studiendesign: Einfluss der Substantivfrequenz auf eine potentielle Vorverarbeitung mittels boundary paradigm; Untersuchungsprachen: Deutsch und Englisch - Versuchspersonengruppen: 1. Deutsche L1-Sprecher lesen Deutsch, 2. englische L1-Sprecher gänzlich ohne Deutschkenntnisse lesen Englisch, 3. deutsche L1-Sprecher mit exzellenten Englischkenntnissen lesen Englisch. Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse: Die Substantivgroßschreibung hat eindeutig einen Einfluss auf die Satzverarbeitung sowohl im Deutschen als auch im Englischen. Dass dieser einen substanziell entscheidenden Vorteil bringt, kann nicht bestätigt werden. N2 - The aim of the doctoral project was to answer the question of whether the structural word-initial noun capitalization, as it can otherwise only be found in Luxembourgish alongside German, has a function that is advantageous for the reader. The overriding hypothesis was that an advantage is achieved by activating a syntactic category, namely the core of a noun phrase, through the parafoveal perception of the capital letters. This perception from the corner of the eye should make it possible to preprocess the following noun. As a result, sentence processing should be facilitated, which should ultimately be reflected in overall faster reading times and fixation durations. The structure of the project includes three studies, some of which included different participant groups: Study 1: Study design: Semantic priming using garden-path sentences should bring out the functionality of noun capitalization for the reader Participant groups: German natives reading German Study 2: Study design: same design as study 1, but in English Participant groups: English natives without any knowledge of German reading English English natives who regularly read German reading English German with high proficiency in English reading English Study 3: Study design: Influence of the noun frequency on a potential preprocessing using the boundary paradigm; Study languages: German and English Participant groups: German natives reading German English natives without any knowledge of German reading English German with high proficiency in English reading English Brief summary: The noun capitalization clearly has an impact on sentence processing in both German and English. It cannot be confirmed that this has a substantial, decisive advantage. T2 - Der Einfluss der Substantivgroßschreibung beim Lesen von Deutsch und Englisch KW - Eye-tracking KW - Noun capitalization KW - Orthography KW - Blickbewegungen KW - Orthographie KW - Lesen KW - Substantivgroßschreibung Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-498031 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tseng, Chiao-I A1 - Laubrock, Jochen A1 - Bateman, John A. T1 - The impact of multimodal cohesion on attention and interpretation in film JF - Discourse, context & media N2 - This article presents results of an exploratory investigation combining multimodal cohesion analysis and eye-tracking studies. Multimodal cohesion, as a tool of multimodal discourse analysis, goes beyond lin-guistic cohesive mechanisms to enable the construction of cross-modal discourse structures that system-atically relate technical details of audio, visual and verbal modalities. Patterns of multimodal cohesion from these discourse structures were used to design eye-tracking experiments and questionnaires in order to empirically investigate how auditory and visual cohesive cues affect attention and comprehen-sion. We argue that the cross-modal structures of cohesion revealed by our method offer a strong methodology for addressing empirical questions concerning viewers' comprehension of narrative settings and the comparative salience of visual, verbal and audio cues. Analyses are presented of the beginning of Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) and a sketch from Monty Python filmed in 1971. Our approach balances the narrative-based issue of how narrative elements in film guide meaning interpretation and the recipient -based question of where a film viewer's attention is directed during viewing and how this affects comprehension. KW - Film KW - Cohesion KW - Discourse semantics KW - Multimodality KW - Eye-tracking KW - Attention Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100544 SN - 2211-6958 VL - 44 PB - Amsterdam [u.a.] CY - Oxford ER - TY - THES A1 - Mertzen, Daniela T1 - A cross-linguistic investigation of similarity-based interference in sentence comprehension T1 - Eine cross-linguistische Untersuchung ähnlichkeitsbasierter Interferenz in der Satzverarbeitung N2 - The aim of this dissertation was to conduct a larger-scale cross-linguistic empirical investigation of similarity-based interference effects in sentence comprehension. Interference studies can offer valuable insights into the mechanisms that are involved in long-distance dependency completion. Many studies have investigated similarity-based interference effects, showing that syntactic and semantic information are employed during long-distance dependency formation (e.g., Arnett & Wagers, 2017; Cunnings & Sturt, 2018; Van Dyke, 2007, Van Dyke & Lewis, 2003; Van Dyke & McElree, 2011). Nevertheless, there are some important open questions in the interference literature that are critical to our understanding of the constraints involved in dependency resolution. The first research question concerns the relative timing of syntactic and semantic interference in online sentence comprehension. Only few interference studies have investigated this question, and, to date, there is not enough data to draw conclusions with regard to their time course (Van Dyke, 2007; Van Dyke & McElree, 2011). Our first cross-linguistic study explores the relative timing of syntactic and semantic interference in two eye-tracking reading experiments that implement the study design used in Van Dyke (2007). The first experiment tests English sentences. The second, larger-sample experiment investigates the two interference types in German. Overall, the data suggest that syntactic and semantic interference can arise simultaneously during retrieval. The second research question concerns a special case of semantic interference: We investigate whether cue-based retrieval interference can be caused by semantically similar items which are not embedded in a syntactic structure. This second interference study builds on a landmark study by Van Dyke & McElree (2006). The study design used in their study is unique in that it is able to pin down the source of interference as a consequence of cue overload during retrieval, when semantic retrieval cues do not uniquely match the retrieval target. Unlike most other interference studies, this design is able to rule out encoding interference as an alternative explanation. Encoding accounts postulate that it is not cue overload at the retrieval site but the erroneous encoding of similar linguistic items in memory that leads to interference (Lewandowsky et al., 2008; Oberauer & Kliegl, 2006). While Van Dyke & McElree (2006) reported cue-based retrieval interference from sentence-external distractors, the evidence for this effect was weak. A subsequent study did not show interference of this type (Van Dyke et al., 2014). Given these inconclusive findings, further research is necessary to investigate semantic cue-based retrieval interference. The second study in this dissertation provides a larger-scale cross-linguistic investigation of cue-based retrieval interference from sentence-external items. Three larger-sample eye-tracking studies in English, German, and Russian tested cue-based interference in the online processing of filler-gap dependencies. This study further extends the previous research by investigating interference in each language under varying task demands (Logačev & Vasishth, 2016; Swets et al., 2008). Overall, we see some very modest support for proactive cue-based retrieval interference in English. Unexpectedly, this was observed only under a low task demand. In German and Russian, there is some evidence against the interference effect. It is possible that interference is attenuated in languages with richer case marking. In sum, the cross-linguistic experiments on the time course of syntactic and semantic interference from sentence-internal distractors support existing evidence of syntactic and semantic interference during sentence comprehension. Our data further show that both types of interference effects can arise simultaneously. Our cross-linguistic experiments investigating semantic cue-based retrieval interference from sentence-external distractors suggest that this type of interference may arise only in specific linguistic contexts. N2 - Ziel dieser Dissertation war es, eine größer-angelegte, sprachübergreifende, empirische Untersuchung von Interferenzeffekten beim Satzverstehen durchzuführen. Interferenzstudien bieten wertvolle Einblicke in die Mechanismen, die während der Satzverarbeitung, insbesondere bei der Bildung von nicht-lokalen Dependenzen eine Rolle spielen. Studien zu ähnlichkeitsbasierten Interferenzeffekten haben gezeigt, dass syntaktische und semantische Informationen bei der Bildung von nicht-lokalen Dependenzen verwendet werden (z. B. Arnett & Wagers, 2017; Cunnings & Sturt, 2018; Van Dyke, 2007, Van Dyke & Lewis, 2003; Van Dyke & McElree, 2011). Dennoch bleiben in der Interferenzliteratur einige wichtige Fragen unbeantwortet, die für unser Verständnis der Satzverarbeitungsmechanismen von Bedeutung sind. Die erste Forschungsfrage betrifft den zeitlichen Ablauf syntaktischer und semantischer Interferenz während des Satzverstehens. Nur wenige Interferenzstudien haben diese Frage untersucht, jedoch sind aktuell nicht genügend Daten vorhanden, um Schlussfolgerungen bezüglich des zeitlichen Verlaufs zu ziehen (Van Dyke, 2007; Van Dyke & McElree, 2011). Die erste sprachübergreifende Studie in dieser Dissertation untersucht den zeitlichen Ablauf von syntaktischer und semantischer Interferenz mithilfe zweier Eyetracking-Leseexperimente. Diese nutzen das von Van Dyke (2007) implementierte Studiendesign. Das erste Experiment testet englische Sätze. Das zweite Experiment, welches eine größere Stichprobe untersucht, testet Interferenzeffekte im Deutschen. Insgesamt deuten die Daten darauf hin, dass syntaktische und semantische Interferenzeffekte zeitgleich auftreten können. Die zweite Forschungsfrage untersucht einen Spezialfall der semantischen Interferenz: Es wird untersucht, ob cue-abhängige Abrufinterferenz durch Items verursacht werden kann, die nicht in die syntaktische Struktur eingebettet sind. Diese zweite Interferenzstudie nutzt das Studiendesign von Van Dyke & McElree (2006), welches in der Lage ist, die Quelle der Interferenzeffekte als Folge von “cue overload” zu bestimmen, d.h., wenn semantische cues während des Abrufs aus dem Gedächtnis nicht eindeutig mit dem Zielwort übereinstimmen. Im Gegensatz zu anderen Interferenzstudien kann dieses Design Enkodierungsinterferenz als alternative Erklärung ausschließen. Enkodierungsansätze nehmen an, dass nicht ein “cue overload”, sondern eine fehlerhafte Kodierung ähnlicher Items im Gedächtnis Interferenz zur Folge hat (Lewandowsky et al., 2008; Oberauer & Kliegl, 2006). Obwohl die Van Dyke & McElree (2006) Studie angibt, cue-basierte Interferenz zu beobachten, ist die Evidenz für diesen Effekt schwach. Eine Folgestudie findet keine Evidenz für Interferenzeffekte dieser Art (Van Dyke et al., 2014). Die nicht eindeutigen Ergebnisse erfordern weitere Untersuchungen semantischer cue-basierter Interferenz. Die zweite Studie in dieser Dissertation untersucht cue-basierte Interferenzeffekte durch Items, die nicht in die syntaktische Struktur eingebettet sind. Drei Eyetracking-Studien, im Englischen, Deutschen und Russischen, untersuchen cue-basierte Interferenz während der Verarbeitung von “filler-gap” Dependenzen. Diese Studie ergänzt bisherige Studien, indem sie Interferenz in mehreren Sprachen sowie unter unterschiedlich komplexen Aufgabenanforderungen untersucht (Logačev & Vasishth, 2016; Swets et al., 2008). Insgesamt zeigen die Daten nur sehr schwache Evidenz für cue-basierte Interferenz im Englischen, und ausschließlich unter wenig komplexen Aufgabenanforderungen. Im Deutschen und Russischen sprechen die Daten gegen einen Interferenzeffekt, was darauf hinweisen könnte, dass Interferenzeffekte in Sprachen mit reicher Kasusmarkierung nur abgeschwächt vorzufinden sind. Insgesamt zeigen die sprachübergreifenden Experimente zum zeitlichen Verlauf syntaktischer und semantischer Interferenz durch satz-interne Items, dass beide Arten von Interferenzeffekten gleichzeitig auftreten können. Unsere sprachübergreifenden Experimente zur Untersuchung semantischer Interferenzen durch satz-externe Items deuten darauf hin, dass diese Art von Interferenz nur kontextspezifisch auftritt. KW - psycholinguistics KW - sentence processing KW - cue-based retrieval KW - similarity-based interference KW - eye-tracking KW - Psycholinguistik KW - Satzverarbeitung KW - Cue-abhängiger Abruf KW - ähnlichkeitsbasierte Gedächtnisinterferenz KW - Eye-tracking Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-556685 ER - TY - THES A1 - Adelt, Anne T1 - The Relativized Minimality approach to comprehension of German relative clauses in aphasia N2 - 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. N2 - Personen mit Aphasie (PmA) verstehen Objektrelativsätze (ORS) häufig schlechter als Subjektrelativsätze (SRS). Im linguistisch basierten Ansatz der relativierten Minimalitätstheorie (RM; Rizzi, 1990, 2004) wird diese sog. Subjekt-Objekt-Asymmetrie dadurch erklärt, dass bei PmA aufgrund reduzierter Verarbeitungskapazitäten ein sog. Minimalitätseffekt in ORS auftritt (Garraffa & Grillo, 2008; Grillo, 2008, 2009), der die Verarbeitung erschwert. Dieser entsteht dadurch, dass das eingebettete Subjekt in der syntaktischen Abhängigkeit zwischen dem bewegten Objekt und seiner Spur interveniert. Im Gegensatz dazu gibt es in SRS kein intervenierendes Element. Anhand von Ergebnissen aus psycholinguistischen Studien (Belletti et al., 2012; Friedmann et al., 2009) wird zudem angenommen, dass der Minimalitätseffekt in ORS reduziert wird, wenn sich das bewegte Objekt und das intervenierende Subjekt hinsichtlich ihrer syntaktischen Merkmale unterscheiden. Für das Deutsche wird von der RM vorhergesagt, dass die Merkmale Numerus (Singular vs. Plural) und [+NP] (volle Nominalphrasen vs. Pronomen) für das Auftreten des Minimalitätseffekts relevant sind. Je stärker sich die Konstituenten hinsichtlich relevanter syntaktischer Merkmale unterscheiden, desto stärker wird die Verarbeitung von ORS fazilitiert, weil PmA leichter zwischen dem bewegten Objekt und dem intervenierenden Subjekt unterscheiden können. In dieser kumulativen Dissertation wird überprüft, ob mithilfe der RM Leistungsmuster bei der Verarbeitung von Relativsätzen in deutsch-sprechenden PmA erklärt werden können. Zu diesem Zweck wurden zwei Studien durchgeführt, in denen das Visual-World-Eyetracking-Paradigma mit einer auditiven Referenten-Identifikationsaufgabe kombiniert wurde, um die Offline- und Online-Verarbeitung von Relativsätzen zu untersuchen. Dabei wurde überprüft, (a) ob bei PmA eine Subjekt-Objekt-Asymmetrie auftritt, (b) ob die Verarbeitung von ORS durch die unterschiedliche Markierung des Objekts und des Subjekts hinsichtlich der Merkmale Numerus und/oder [+NP] fazilitiert wird und (c) ob die Satzverarbeitung weiter fazilitiert wird, wenn sich die Argumente in mehreren Merkmalen unterscheiden. Darüber hinaus wurden kasus-markierte (Desambiguierung durch Kasus am Relativpronomen oder am Determinierer der nachfolgenden Nominalphrase) oder numerus-markierte Relativsätze (Desambiguierung durch Flexion des satzfinalen Verbs) verglichen. Dadurch wurde untersucht, ob der Zeitpunkt der Disambiguierung einen Einfluss auf die Verarbeitung von Relativsätzen hat. Laut der RM sollte der Minimalitätseffekt nicht durch Kasus als morpho-syntaktisches Merkmal beeinflusst werden. Dennoch werden kasus-markierte Sätze früher desambiguiert als numerus-markierte Sätze, weshalb ein Verarbeitungsvorteil für kasus-markierte Relativsätze zu erwarten ist. In Studie I wurden die Zielsätze hinsichtlich der Wortstellung (SRS vs. ORS) und des [+NP]-Merkmals variiert (volle Nominalphrase vs. Pronomen als eingebettetes Element). Darüber hinaus wurde der Einfluss dieser Manipulationen in kasus- und numerus-markierten Relativsätzen untersucht. Dadurch wurde beeinflusst, inwiefern sich die Konstituenten in relevanten morpho-syntaktischen Merkmalen unterscheiden. Die PmA zeigten eine Subjekt-Objekt-Asymmetrie, was durch das Auftreten eines Minimalitätseffekts in ORS erklärt werden kann. Im Gegensatz zu den Vorhersagen der RM konnte in ORS kein fazilitierender Effekt festgestellt werden, wenn sich die Konstituenten nur im Merkmal Numerus oder [+NP] unterschieden. Stattdessen verbesserten sich die Verstehensleistungen für solche ORS, in denen sich das bewegte Objekt und das eingebettete Subjekt hinsichtlich beider Merkmale Numerus und [+NP] unterschieden. In Studie II wurden kasus- und numerus-markierte ORS untersucht, wobei verschiedene Zeitpunkte der Disambiguierung berücksichtigt wurden. Hierbei zeigte sich ein leichter Verarbeitungsvorteil für kasus-markierte verglichen mit numerus-markierten ORS. Zusammenfassend können mithilfe der RM nicht alle empirischen Daten von deutschsprachigen PmA erklärt werden. Die Verarbeitung von Relativsätzen wird durch das Auftreten des intervenierenden Subjekts in ORS beeinflusst. Die in der Dissertation berichteten Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Satzverarbeitung bei Aphasie durch strukturelle Unterschiede zwischen den Konstituenten beeinflusst werden kann. Insbesondere kann der Minimalitätseffekt in ORS überwunden werden, wenn sich die Konstituenten hinsichtlich der morpho-syntaktischen Merkmale maximal unterscheiden. In diesem Fall können PmA das bewegte Objekt und das intervenierende Subjekt trotz ihrer reduzierten Verarbeitungskapazitäten voneinander unterscheiden. Das heißt, dass mithilfe der RM aufgezeigt werden kann, wie morpho-syntaktische Merkmale die Satzverarbeitung von PmA selektiv beeinflussen können. Dies betont die enge Verknüpfung zwischen Annahmen aus der theoretischen Syntax und empirischer Forschung. KW - aphasia KW - Aphasie KW - relative clauses KW - Relativsätze KW - Relativized Minimality KW - relativierte Minimalitätstheorie KW - morpho-syntactic features KW - morpho-syntaktische Merkmale KW - sentence processing KW - Satzverarbeitung KW - eye tracking KW - Eye-tracking KW - case KW - Kasus KW - number KW - Numerus Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-623312 ER -