TY - JOUR A1 - Czapka, Sophia A1 - Festman, Julia T1 - Wisconsin Card Sorting Test reveals a monitoring advantage but not a switching advantage in multilingual children JF - Journal of experimental child psychology : JECP N2 - The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is used to test higher-level executive functions or switching, depending on the measures chosen in a study and its goal. Many measures can be extracted from the WCST, but how to assign them to specific cognitive skills remains unclear. Thus, the current study first aimed at identifying which measures test the same cognitive abilities. Second, we compared the performance of mono- and multilingual children in the identified abilities because there is some evidence that bilingualism can improve executive functions. We tested 66 monolingual and 56 multilingual (i.e., bi- and trilingual) primary school children (M-age = 109 months) in an online version of the classic WCST. A principal component analysis revealed four factors: problem-solving, monitoring, efficient errors, and perseverations. Because the assignment of measures to factors is only partially coherent across the literature, we identified this as one of the sources of task impurity. In the second part, we calculated regression analyses to test for group differences while controlling for intelligence as a predictor for executive functions and for confounding variables such as age, German lexicon size, and socioeconomic status. Intelligence predicted problem solving and perseverations. In the monitoring component (measured by the reaction times preceding a rule switch), multilinguals outperformed monolinguals, thereby supporting the view that bi- or multilingualism can improve processing speed related to monitoring. KW - Executive functions KW - Switching KW - Monitoring KW - Multilingualism KW - Factor KW - analysis KW - Bilingual advantage Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105038 SN - 0022-0965 SN - 1096-0457 VL - 204 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hein, Johannes T1 - Verb movement and the lack of verb-doubling VP topicalization in Germanic JF - The journal of comparative Germanic linguistics N2 - In the absence of a stranded auxiliary or modal, VP-topicalization in most Germanic languages gives rise to the presence of a dummy verb meaning 'do'. Cross-linguistically, this is a rather uncommon strategy as comparable VP-fronting constructions in other languages, e.g. Hebrew, Polish, and Portuguese, among many others, exhibit verb doubling. A comparison of several recent approaches to verb doubling in VP-fronting reveals that it is the consequence of VP-evacuating head movement of the verb to some higher functional head, which saves the (low copy of the) verb from undergoing copy deletion as part of the low VP copy in the VP-topicalization dependency. Given that almost all Germanic languages have such V-salvaging head movement, namely V-to-C movement, but do not show verb doubling, this paper suggests that V-raising is exceptionally impossible in VP-topicalization clauses and addresses the question of why it is blocked. After discussing and rejecting some conceivable explanations for the lack of verb doubling, I propose that the blocking effect arises from a bleeding interaction between V-to-C movement and VP-to-SpecCP movement. As both operations are triggered by the same head, i.e. C, the VP is always encountered first by a downward search algorithm. Movement of VP then freezes it and its lower copies for subextraction precluding subsequent V-raising. Crucially, this implies that there is no V-to-T raising in most Germanic languages. V2 languages with V-to-T raising, e.g. Yiddish, are correctly predicted to not exhibit the blocking effect. KW - Verb doubling KW - Head movement KW - VP-topicalization KW - Copy deletion KW - V-to-T KW - movement KW - V-to-C movement KW - Verb second KW - Freezing Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10828-021-09125-5 SN - 1383-4924 SN - 1572-8552 VL - 24 IS - 1 SP - 89 EP - 144 PB - Springer Science + Business Media B.V. CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pregla, Dorothea A1 - Lissón Hernández, Paula J. A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Burchert, Frank A1 - Stadie, Nicole T1 - Variability in sentence comprehension in aphasia in German JF - Brain & language : a journal of the neurobiology of language N2 - An important aspect of aphasia is the observation of behavioral variability between and within individual participants. Our study addresses variability in sentence comprehension in German, by testing 21 individuals with aphasia and a control group and involving (a) several constructions (declarative sentences, relative clauses and control structures with an overt pronoun or PRO), (b) three response tasks (object manipulation, sentence-picture matching with/without self-paced listening), and (c) two test phases (to investigate test-retest performance). With this systematic, large-scale study we gained insights into variability in sentence comprehension. We found that the size of syntactic effects varied both in aphasia and in control participants. Whereas variability in control participants led to systematic changes, variability in individuals with aphasia was unsystematic across test phases or response tasks. The persistent occurrence of canonicity and interference effects across response tasks and test phases, however, shows that the performance is systematically influenced by syntactic complexity. KW - Aphasia KW - Sentence Comprehension KW - Variability KW - Test-retest reliability KW - Task demands KW - Canonicity and interference effects KW - Object manipulation KW - Sentence-picture matching KW - Self-paced listening KW - Adaptation Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bl.2021.105008 SN - 0093-934X SN - 1090-2155 VL - 222 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - THES A1 - Bacskai-Atkari, Julia T1 - The syntax of functional left peripheries BT - clause typing in west germanic and beyond Y1 - 2021 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mazzarella, Diana A1 - Gotzner, Nicole T1 - The polarity asymmetry of negative strengthening BT - dissociating adjectival polarity from face-threatening potential JF - Glossa : a journal of general linguistics N2 - The interpretation of negated antonyms is characterised by a polarity asymmetry: the negation of a positive polarity antonym (X is not interesting) is more likely to be strengthened to convey its opposite ('X is uninteresting') than the negation of a negative polarity antonym (X is not uninteresting to convey that 'X is interesting') is. A classical explanation of this asymmetry relies on face-management. Since the predication of a negative polarity antonym (X is uninteresting) is potentially face-threatening in most contexts, the negation of the corresponding positive polarity antonym (X is not interesting) is more likely to be interpreted as an indirect strategy to minimise face-threat while getting the message across. We present two experimental studies in which we test the predictions of this explanation. In contrast with it, our results show that adjectival polarity, but not face-threatening potential, appears to be responsible for the asymmetric interpretation of negated antonyms. KW - negation KW - polarity KW - antonyms KW - negative strengthening KW - politeness KW - face Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.1342 SN - 2397-1835 VL - 6 IS - 1 PB - Open Library of Humanities CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stone, Kate A1 - Verissimo, Joao A1 - Schad, Daniel J. A1 - Oltrogge, Elise A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Lago, Sol T1 - The interaction of grammatically distinct agreement dependencies in predictive processing JF - Language, cognition and neuroscience N2 - Previous research has found that comprehenders sometimes predict information that is grammatically unlicensed by sentence constraints. An open question is why such grammatically unlicensed predictions occur. We examined the possibility that unlicensed predictions arise in situations of information conflict, for instance when comprehenders try to predict upcoming words while simultaneously building dependencies with previously encountered elements in memory. German possessive pronouns are a good testing ground for this hypothesis because they encode two grammatically distinct agreement dependencies: a retrospective one between the possessive and its previously mentioned referent, and a prospective one between the possessive and its following nominal head. In two visual world eye-tracking experiments, we estimated the onset of predictive effects in participants' fixations. The results showed that the retrospective dependency affected resolution of the prospective dependency by shifting the onset of predictive effects. We attribute this effect to an interaction between predictive and memory retrieval processes. KW - sentence processing KW - visual world eye-tracking KW - prediction KW - gender KW - agreement KW - German Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2021.1921816 SN - 2327-3798 SN - 2327-3801 VL - 36 IS - 9 SP - 1159 EP - 1179 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Paetzel-Prüsmann, Maike A1 - Perugia, Giulia A1 - Castellano, Ginevra T1 - The influence of robot personality on the development of uncanny feelings JF - Computers in human behavior N2 - Empirical investigations on the uncanny valley have almost solely focused on the analysis of people?s noninteractive perception of a robot at first sight. Recent studies suggest, however, that these uncanny first impressions may be significantly altered over an interaction. What is yet to discover is whether certain interaction patterns can lead to a faster decline in uncanny feelings. In this paper, we present a study in which participants with limited expertise in Computer Science played a collaborative geography game with a Furhat robot. During the game, Furhat displayed one of two personalities, which corresponded to two different interaction strategies. The robot was either optimistic and encouraging, or impatient and provocative. We performed the study in a science museum and recruited participants among the visitors. Our findings suggest that a robot that is rated high on agreeableness, emotional stability, and conscientiousness can indeed weaken uncanny feelings. This study has important implications for human-robot interaction design as it further highlights that a first impression, merely based on a robot?s appearance, is not indicative of the affinity people might develop towards it throughout an interaction. We thus argue that future work should emphasize investigations on exact interaction patterns that can help to overcome uncanny feelings. KW - Human-robot interaction KW - Uncanny valley KW - Robot personality KW - Human KW - perception of robots KW - Crowd-sourcing KW - Multimodal behavior Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.106756 SN - 0747-5632 SN - 1873-7692 VL - 120 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Grubic, Mira A1 - Wierzba, Marta T1 - The German additive particle noch BT - testing the role of topic situations JF - Glossa : a journal of general linguistics N2 - The particle noch (‘still’) can have an additive reading similar to auch (‘also’). We argue that both particles indicate that a previously partially answered QUD is re-opened to add a further answer. The particles differ in that the QUD, in the case of auch, can be re-opened with respect to the same topic situation, whereas noch indicates that the QUD is re-opened with respect to a new topic situation. This account predicts a difference in the accommodation behavior of the two particles. We present an experiment whose results are in line with this prediction. KW - additive particles KW - noch KW - auch KW - German KW - topic situation KW - semantics KW - experiments Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.1275 SN - 2397-1835 VL - 6 IS - 1 PB - Ubiquity Press CY - London ER - TY - GEN A1 - Grubic, Mira A1 - Wierzba, Marta T1 - The German additive particle noch BT - testing the role of topic situations T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The particle noch (‘still’) can have an additive reading similar to auch (‘also’). We argue that both particles indicate that a previously partially answered QUD is re-opened to add a further answer. The particles differ in that the QUD, in the case of auch, can be re-opened with respect to the same topic situation, whereas noch indicates that the QUD is re-opened with respect to a new topic situation. This account predicts a difference in the accommodation behavior of the two particles. We present an experiment whose results are in line with this prediction. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 709 KW - additive particles KW - noch KW - auch KW - German KW - topic situation KW - semantics KW - experiments Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-510049 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 709 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Reifegerste, Jana T1 - The effects of aging on bilingual language BT - what changes, what doesn't, and why JF - Bilingualism : language and cognition N2 - Substantial research has examined cognition in aging bilinguals. However, less work has investigated the effects of aging on language itself in bilingualism. In this article I comprehensively review prior research on this topic, and interpret the evidence in light of current theories of aging and theories of bilingualism. First, aging indeed appears to affect bilinguals' language performance, though there is considerable variability in the trajectory across adulthood (declines, age-invariance, and improvements) and in the extent to which these trajectories resemble those found in monolinguals. I argue that these age effects are likely explained by the key opposing forces of increasing experience and cognitive declines in aging. Second, consistent with some theoretical work on bilingual language processing, the grammatical processing mechanisms do not seem to change between younger and older bilingual adults, even after decades of immersion. I conclude by discussing how future research can further advance the field. KW - aging KW - bilingualism KW - second language KW - lexical processing KW - grammatical KW - processing Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728920000413 SN - 1366-7289 SN - 1469-1841 VL - 24 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - Cambridge ER -