TY - JOUR A1 - Bijeljac-Babic, Ranka A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Nazzi, Thierry T1 - Early Prosodic Acquisition in Bilingual Infants: The Case of the Perceptual Trochaic Bias JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Infants start learning the prosodic properties of their native language before 12 months, as shown by the emergence of a trochaic bias in English-learning infants between 6 and 9 months (Jusczyk et al., 1993), and in German-learning infants between 4 and 6 months (Huhle et al., 2009, 2014), while French-learning infants do not show a bias at 6 months (Hohle et al., 2009). This language-specific emergence of a trochaic bias is supported by the fact that English and German are languages with trochaic predominance in their lexicons, while French is a language with phrase-final lengthening but lacking lexical stress. We explored the emergence of a trochaic bias in bilingual French/German infants, to study whether the developmental trajectory would be similar to monolingual infants and whether amount of relative exposure to the two languages has an impact on the emergence of the bias. Accordingly, we replicated Hohle et al. (2009) with 24 bilingual 6-month-olds learning French and German simultaneously. All infants had been exposed to both languages for 30 to 70% of the time from birth. Using the Head Preference Procedure, infants were presented with two lists of stimuli, one made up of several occurrences of the pseudoword /GAba/ with word-initial stress (trochaic pattern), the second one made up of several occurrences of the pseudoword /gaBA/ with word-final stress (iambic pattern). The stimuli were recorded by a native German female speaker. Results revealed that these French/German bilingual 6-month olds have a trochaic bias (as evidenced by a preference to listen to the trochaic pattern). Hence, their listening preference is comparable to that of monolingual German-learning 6-month-olds, but differs from that of monolingual French-learning 6-month-olds who did not show any preference (Noble et al., 2009). Moreover, the size of the trochaic bias in the bilingual infants was not correlated with their amount of exposure to German. The present results thus establish that the development of a trochaic bias in simultaneous bilinguals is not delayed compared to monolingual German-learning infants (Hohle et al., 2009) and is rather independent of the amount of exposure to German relative to French. KW - bilinguals KW - infants KW - language KW - prosody KW - lexical stress KW - dominance effects Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00210 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 7 SP - 1753 EP - 1802 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Deffa, Oromiya-Jalata T1 - The impact of homogeneity on intra-group cohesion: a macro-level comparison of minority communities in a Western diaspora JF - Journal of multilingual and multicultural development N2 - Contrary to earlier studies dealing with the cultural identity development of diasporic minorities, this paper assesses the impact of homogeneity on intra-group cohesion and ethnic orientation. To this end, Oromo-Americans, an ethnic group originally located within the national borders of Ethiopia, will be compared to Armenian-Americans, British-Pakistanis and Somali-Americans. Despite different circumstances, all four groups share the experience of displacement owing to war and destitution. Additionally, all groups are confronted with the ramifications of a visible minority status. In the process of comparing these groups, their degrees of homogeneity in regard to language and religion - central aspects of culture and cultural identity - will be examined and juxtaposed at a macro level. Based on the correlative relationship of group homogeneity and social cohesion, I argue that the more homogeneous a group is in terms of language and religion, the more close-knit it will be. Consequently, exiled minorities who share the same language and religion are more likely to develop and retain a strong ethnic orientation than groups who are heterogeneous with regard to language and/or religion. KW - minority groups KW - Homogeneity KW - ethnic orientation KW - group cohesion KW - religion KW - language Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2015.1072203 SN - 0143-4632 SN - 1747-7557 VL - 37 SP - 343 EP - 356 PB - Elsevier CY - Abingdon ER - TY - GEN A1 - Lachmair, Martin A1 - Ruiz Fernandez, Susana A1 - Bury, Nils-Alexander A1 - Gerjets, Peter A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Bock, Otmar L. T1 - How body orientation affects concepts of space, time and valence BT - functional relevance of integrating sensorimotor experiences during word processing T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The aim of the present study was to test the functional relevance of the spatial concepts UP or DOWN for words that use these concepts either literally (space) or metaphorically (time, valence). A functional relevance would imply a symmetrical relationship between the spatial concepts and words related to these concepts, showing that processing words activate the related spatial concepts on one hand, but also that an activation of the concepts will ease the retrieval of a related word on the other. For the latter, the rotation angle of participant's body position was manipulated either to an upright or a head-down tilted body position to activate the related spatial concept. Afterwards participants produced in a within-subject design previously memorized words of the concepts space, time and valence according to the pace of a metronome. All words were related either to the spatial concept UP or DOWN. The results including Bayesian analyses show (1) a significant interaction between body position and words using the concepts UP and DOWN literally, (2) a marginal significant interaction between body position and temporal words and (3) no effect between body position and valence words. However, post-hoc analyses suggest no difference between experiments. Thus, the authors concluded that integrating sensorimotor experiences is indeed of functional relevance for all three concepts of space, time and valence. However, the strength of this functional relevance depends on how close words are linked to mental concepts representing vertical space. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 505 KW - mental timeline KW - cognition KW - language KW - representation KW - hypothesis KW - mechanisms KW - future KW - flies KW - line KW - mind Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-410942 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 505 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Bhatara, Anjali A1 - Laukka, Petri A1 - Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie A1 - Granjon, Lionel A1 - Elfenbein, Hillary Anger A1 - Bänziger, Tanja T1 - Second language ability and emotional prosody perception T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The present study examines the effect of language experience on vocal emotion perception in a second language. Native speakers of French with varying levels of self-reported English ability were asked to identify emotions from vocal expressions produced by American actors in a forced-choice task, and to rate their pleasantness, power, alertness and intensity on continuous scales. Stimuli included emotionally expressive English speech (emotional prosody) and non-linguistic vocalizations (affect bursts), and a baseline condition with Swiss-French pseudo-speech. Results revealed effects of English ability on the recognition of emotions in English speech but not in non-linguistic vocalizations. Specifically, higher English ability was associated with less accurate identification of positive emotions, but not with the interpretation of negative emotions. Moreover, higher English ability was associated with lower ratings of pleasantness and power, again only for emotional prosody. This suggests that second language skills may sometimes interfere with emotion recognition from speech prosody, particularly for positive emotions. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 503 KW - recognizing emotions KW - basic emotions KW - recognition KW - language KW - vocalizations KW - speech KW - models Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-411860 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 503 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Bijeljac-Babic, Ranka A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Nazzi, Thierry T1 - Early prosodic acquisition in bilingual infants BT - the case of the perceptual trochaic bias T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Infants start learning the prosodic properties of their native language before 12 months, as shown by the emergence of a trochaic bias in English-learning infants between 6 and 9 months (Jusczyk et al., 1993), and in German-learning infants between 4 and 6 months (Huhle et al., 2009, 2014), while French-learning infants do not show a bias at 6 months (Hohle et al., 2009). This language-specific emergence of a trochaic bias is supported by the fact that English and German are languages with trochaic predominance in their lexicons, while French is a language with phrase-final lengthening but lacking lexical stress. We explored the emergence of a trochaic bias in bilingual French/German infants, to study whether the developmental trajectory would be similar to monolingual infants and whether amount of relative exposure to the two languages has an impact on the emergence of the bias. Accordingly, we replicated Hohle et al. (2009) with 24 bilingual 6-month-olds learning French and German simultaneously. All infants had been exposed to both languages for 30 to 70% of the time from birth. Using the Head Preference Procedure, infants were presented with two lists of stimuli, one made up of several occurrences of the pseudoword /GAba/ with word-initial stress (trochaic pattern), the second one made up of several occurrences of the pseudoword /gaBA/ with word-final stress (iambic pattern). The stimuli were recorded by a native German female speaker. Results revealed that these French/German bilingual 6-month olds have a trochaic bias (as evidenced by a preference to listen to the trochaic pattern). Hence, their listening preference is comparable to that of monolingual German-learning 6-month-olds, but differs from that of monolingual French-learning 6-month-olds who did not show any preference (Noble et al., 2009). Moreover, the size of the trochaic bias in the bilingual infants was not correlated with their amount of exposure to German. The present results thus establish that the development of a trochaic bias in simultaneous bilinguals is not delayed compared to monolingual German-learning infants (Hohle et al., 2009) and is rather independent of the amount of exposure to German relative to French. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 435 KW - bilinguals KW - infants KW - language KW - prosody KW - lexical stress KW - dominance effects Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-407225 IS - 435 ER - TY - THES A1 - Harding, Eleanor Elizabeth T1 - Neurocognitive entrainment to meter influences syntactic comprehension in music and language T1 - Neurokognitives Entrainment durch Metrum beeinflusst Syntaxverständnis in Musik und Sprache BT - an individual-differences approach BT - ein Zugang über individuelle Unterschiede N2 - Meter and syntax have overlapping elements in music and speech domains, and individual differences have been documented in both meter perception and syntactic comprehension paradigms. Previous evidence insinuated but never fully explored the relationship that metrical structure has to syntactic comprehension, the comparability of these processes across music and language domains, and the respective role of individual differences. This dissertation aimed to investigate neurocognitive entrainment to meter in music and language, the impact that neurocognitive entrainment had on syntactic comprehension, and whether individual differences in musical expertise, temporal perception and working memory played a role during these processes. A theoretical framework was developed, which linked neural entrainment, cognitive entrainment, and syntactic comprehension while detailing previously documented effects of individual differences on meter perception and syntactic comprehension. The framework was developed in both music and language domains and was tested using behavioral and EEG methods across three studies (seven experiments). In order to satisfy empirical evaluation of neurocognitive entrainment and syntactic aspects of the framework, original melodies and sentences were composed. Each item had four permutations: regular and irregular metricality, based on the hierarchical organization of strong and weak notes and syllables, and preferred and non-preferred syntax, based on structurally alternate endings. The framework predicted — for both music and language domains — greater neurocognitive entrainment in regular compared to irregular metricality conditions, and accordingly, better syntactic integration in regular compared to irregular metricality conditions. Individual differences among participants were expected for both entrainment and syntactic processes. Altogether, the dissertation was able to support a holistic account of neurocognitive entrainment to musical meter and its subsequent influence on syntactic integration of melodies, with musician participants. The theoretical predictions were not upheld in the language domain with musician participants, but initial behavioral evidence in combination with previous EEG evidence suggest that perhaps non-musician language EEG data would support the framework’s predictions. Musicians’ deviation from hypothesized results in the language domain were suspected to reflect heightened perception of acoustic features stemming from musical training, which caused current ‘overly’ regular stimuli to distract the cognitive system. The individual-differences approach was vindicated by the surfacing of two factors scores, Verbal Working Memory and Time and Pitch Discrimination, which in turn correlated with multiple experimental data across the three studies. N2 - Metrum und Syntax weisen sowohl in Musik als auch Sprache ähnliche Strukturelemente auf und in beiden Domänen sind interindividuelle Unterschiede in der Wahrnehmung von Metrum und Syntax berichtet worden. Bisherige Befunde deuten eine Wechselwirkung von metrischer Struktur auf syntaktische Verarbeitung an. Bislang gibt es jedoch keine konkreten Untersuchungen, die diese Beziehung systematisch beleuchtet haben, die Vergleichbarkeit dieser Prozesse in Musik und Sprache eruiert oder den Einfluss interindividueller Unterschiede erforscht haben. Die vorliegende Dissertation zielte daher darauf ab, ein neurokognitives Phänomen — Entrainment — in Musik und Sprache zu untersuchen, dessen Einfluss auf syntaktisches Verstehen zu definieren und herauszufinden, ob individuelle Unterschiede in musikalischer Vorerfahrung, Zeitwahrnehmung oder Arbeitsgedächtnis eine entscheidende Rolle bei diesen Prozessen spielt. Es wurde ein theoretischer Rahmen entwickelt, der neuronales Entrainment, kognitives Entrainment und syntaktisches Verstehen verknüpft und bereits dokumentierte individuelle Unterschiede in der Wahrnehmung vom Metrum und in syntaktischem Verstehen berücksichtigt. Dieser Rahmen wurde sowohl für Musik als auch Sprache formuliert und mit Hilfe von Verhaltens- und EEG-Untersuchungen in drei Studien (zusammengesetzt aus sieben Experimenten) getestet. Um eine empirische Untersuchung von neurokognitivem Entrainment und syntaktischem Verstehen zu ermöglichen, wurde geeignetes Melodie- und Satzmaterial entwickelt. Jede Melodie und jeder Satz wurde in vier Variationen dargeboten: regelmäßiges/unregelmäßiges Metrum, basierend auf der hierarchischen Organisation von betonten/unbetonten Noten und Silben, und bevorzugte/nicht bevorzugte Syntax, basierend auf strukturell verschiedenen Satzenden. Es wurde erwartet, dass in beiden Domänen regelmäßiges Metrum zu größerem neurokognitiven Entrainment führt als unregelmäßiges Metrum. Individuelle Unterschiede zwischen den Teilnehmern wurden sowohl für Entrainment als auch für die syntaktische Verarbeitung erwartet. Insgesamt kann die Dissertation den Einfluss von musikalischem Metrum auf neurokognitives Entrainment sowie dessen Einfluss wiederum auf die syntaktische Integration von Melodien bestätigen. Für die Sprachverarbeitung konnten diese Zusammenhänge in der hier getesteten Stichprobe von Musikern nicht nachgewiesen werden. Frühere Befunde aus Verhaltens- und EEG-Studien legen jedoch nahe, dass Untersuchungen mit Nichtmusikern ein solches Ergebnis erbringen könnten. Dass Musiker von unseren Hypothesen abweichende Ergebnisse in der Sprachverarbeitung zeigen, kann damit zu tun haben, dass sie durch ihr musikalisches Training akustische Merkmale besser wahrnehmen, wodurch "übermäßig" reguläre Stimuli kognitive Interferenzeffekte induzieren können. Des Weiteren konnte in allen drei Studien gezeigt werden, dass individuelle Wahrnehmungsunterschiede durch zwei Faktoren definiert werden: verbales Arbeitsgedächtnis sowie Zeit- und Tonhöhenunterscheidung. KW - entrainment KW - Entrainment KW - syntax KW - Syntax KW - meter KW - Metrum KW - language KW - Sprache KW - music KW - Musik Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-102258 ER -