Dietmar Roehm

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Salzburg

We report a series of event-related potential experiments designed to dissociate the functionally distinct processes involved in the comprehension of highly restricted lexical-semantic relations (antonyms). We sought to differentiate between influences of semantic relatedness (which are independent of the experimental setting) and processes related...

We present a new analysis technique for EEG research on language comprehension, which dissociates superficially indistinguishable event-related potential (ERP) components. A frequency-based analysis differentiated between two apparently identical but functionally distinct N400 effects in terms of activity in separable frequency bands, and whether t...

The hypothesis is tested, whether increasing language processing demands draw on the capacity of working memory thereby leading to an increase in theta band power. Previous research has shown that theta reflects working memory whereas upper alpha semantic memory demands. Sentences were presented in four chunks in a reading and a semantic task. In t...

Sometimes, the relationship between form and meaning in language is not one-to-one. Here, we used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to illuminate the neural correlates of such flexible syntax–semantics mappings during sentence comprehension by examining split-intransitivity. While some (“rigid”) verbs consistently select one auxiliary, other (“...

Topic is often marked only by prosody across languages. In sign languages, prosody is expressed by features similar to those in speech: i.e., sign duration, velocity and amplitude of movement (cf. slope and range of pitch). Topicalized signs usually occur sentence-initially, are followed by a pause, and may show longer duration than nontopics. We u...

Across a number of sign languages, temporal and spatial characteristics of dominant hand articulation are used to express semantic and grammatical features. In this study of Austrian Sign Language (Österreichische Gebärdensprache, or ÖGS), motion capture data of four Deaf signers is used to quantitatively characterize the kinematic parameters of si...

Introduction Early language development in infants is being increasingly studied, though only recently with direct measurements of brain activity rather than with behavioral or physiological measurements. In the current study, we use electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings of 2-week-old infants to look for signs of prenatal learning and to investi...

This paper aims to introduce kinematic motion capture analysis and electromyography(EMG) methodology in the context of experimental investigations involving signlanguages. While motion capture has been employed in previous sign language research,the application of EMG is relatively novel. We utilized both motion capture andEMG techniques to examine...

The aim of this contribution is to highlight the role and relevance of neurolinguistics accounts for second and third language syntactic acquisition/processing. This chapter begins with a brief historical overview of the field of experimental psychology and the birth of the EEG methodology. We then provide a general introduction of the ERP methodol...

Sign languages demonstrate a higher degree of iconicity than spoken languages. Studies on a number of unrelated sign languages show that the event structure of verb signs is reflected in the phonological form of the signs (Wilbur (2008), Malaia & Wilbur (2012), Krebs et al. (2021)). Previous research showed that hearing non-signers (with no prior e...

This paper reviews best practices for experimental design and analysis for sign language research using neurophysiological methods, such as electroencephalography (EEG) and other methods with high temporal resolution, as well as identifies methodological challenges in neurophysiological research on natural sign language processing. In particular, w...

Language processing requires memory retrieval to integrate current input with previous context and making predictions about upcoming input. We propose that prediction and retrieval are two sides of the same coin, i.e. functionally the same, as they both activate memory representations. Under this assumption, memory retrieval and prediction should i...

This is the first kinematic investigation of articulator motion in Austrian Sign Language, which connects kinesiology of sign production and linguistic markers of Aktionsart in the native language of the Deaf1 community in Austria. Our work used a 3D motion capture approach to sign language analysis to investigate the relationship between the seman...

Nonsigners viewing sign language are sometimes able to guess the meaning of signs by relying on the overt connection between form and meaning, or iconicity (cf. Ortega, Özyürek, & Peeters, 2020; Strickland et al., 2015). One word class in sign languages that appears to be highly iconic is classifiers: verb-like signs that can refer to location chan...

Using a novel combination of visual moving window paradigm and timed grammaticality judgment task, this study examines how third language (L3) learners (beginners and intermediate) with L2 German and different non-verb-second L1s process violated and non-violated main declarative sentences with fronted adver-bials in L3 English. It examines the ext...

We investigated whether Austrian L2-English learners would benefit more from written or auditory processing instruction (PI) on the third person singular -(e) s tense form. The instruction and all three tests (pre-test, immediate post-test and delayed post-test two weeks after the instruction) were conducted in school lab classrooms. Using accuracy...

This study focuses on the distribution of agrm-bc, one of two agreement markers used in Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS; Krebs, Julia, Ronnie B. Wilbur & Dietmar Roehm. 2017. Two agreement markers in ÖGS. Sign Language and Linguistics 20(1). 27–54), with respect to different “verb types”. Using an online questionnaire, ÖGS signers rated ÖGS sentences i...

Acquisition of natural language has been shown to fundamentally impact both one’s ability to use the first language and the ability to learn subsequent languages later in life. Sign languages offer a unique perspective on this issue because Deaf signers receive access to signed input at varying ages. The majority acquires sign language in (early) c...

Even though the field of neurolinguistics provides evidence of how second languages (L2s) are represented in learners' brains, only a limited number of attempts have been put forward with sound suggestions of how these findings can help improve effective L2 teaching. This entry will focus on current theoretical perspectives positing different roles...

One of the main characteristics of human languages is that they are subject to fundamental changes over time. However, because of the long transitional periods involved, the internal dynamics of such changes are typically inaccessible. Here, we present a new approach to examining language change via its connection to language comprehension. By mean...

One of the key questions in the study of human language acquisition is the extent to which the development of neural processing networks for different components of language are modulated by exposure to linguistic stimuli. Sign languages offer a unique perspective on this issue, because prelingually Deaf children who receive access to complex lingu...

The preference of the human parser for interpreting syntactically ambiguous sentence-initial arguments as the subject of a clause (i.e. subject preference) has been documented for spoken and sign languages. Recent research (He, Y. [2016]. Interactive processing within and beyond sentence-level: An ERP investigation of simple and complex Chinese sen...

Interference and prediction have independently been identified as crucial influencing factors during language processing. However, their interaction remains severely underinvestigated. Furthermore, despite numerous behavioral studies investigating interference during sentence processing, its neurobiological basis remains insufficiently understood....

Interference and prediction have independently been identified as crucial influencing factors during language processing. However, their interaction remains severely underinvestigated. Furthermore, despite the growing body of behavioral studies investigating interference during sentence processing, the neurobiological basis of cue-based retrieval a...

Even though the field of neurolinguistics provides evidence for how second languages (L2s) are represented in learners' brains, only a limited number of attempts have been put forward with sound suggestions of how such findings can help improve effective L2 instruction. This entry will focus on current theoretical perspectives positing different ro...

Previous studies of Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) word-order variations have demonstrated the human processing system's tendency to interpret a sentence-initial (case-) ambiguous argument as the subject of the clause ("subject preference"). The electroencephalogram study motivating the current report revealed earlier reanalysis effects for object-su...

Research on spoken languages has identified a "subject preference" processing strategy for tackling input that is syntactically ambiguous as to whether a sentence-initial NP is a subject or object. The present study documents that the "subject preference" strategy is also seen in the processing of a sign language, supporting the hypothesis that the...

For many of the sign languages studied to date, different types of agreement markers have been described which express agreement in transitive constructions involving non-inflecting (plain) verbs and sometimes even inflected agreement verbs. Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) belongs to the group of sign languages employing two different agreement marker...

Prediction in sentence comprehension is often investigated by measuring the amplitude of the N400 event-related potential (ERP) component to words that are more or less predictable from their preceding context. The N400 – linked to the activation of word-associated semantic information – is reduced for words that are predictable, indicating that pr...

Interindividuelle Unterschiede bei der Verarbeitung sprachlicher Strukturen haben bei experimentellen Untersuchungen zur Sprachverarbeitung mittels neurobasierter Verfahren lange Zeit keine oder bestenfalls eine untergeordnete Rolle gespielt. Während individuelle Verarbeitungsstrategien in Abhängigkeit von experimentellen Faktoren (z.B. Aufgabenste...

Do people predict specific word-forms during language comprehension? In an Event-Related Potential (ERP) study participants read German sentences with predictable (The goalkeeper claims that the slick ball was easy to CATCH.) and unpredictable (The kids boasted that the young horse was easy to SADDLE.) verbs. Verbs were either consistent with the e...

While being confronted with the task of comprehending a narrative, inferential linking processes are conducted to connect given information to either the subject’s world knowledge or a preceding context. Previous ERP-studies have shown that the processing of varyingly strong inferential relations results in effects within the N400’s as well as the...

This Fixation-related potential (FRP) study investigated the online processing of inferences in natural reading by means of co-registering subject’s eye-movements and electrophysiological activity. It previously has been shown that the processing of varyingly strong inferential relationships elicits a centro-parietal negativity (N400) and a posteri...

Background. Research on prediction in language comprehension has shown that readers and listeners actively predict upcoming information; however, most studies do not differentiate between different levels of predictions, e.g. whether the observed facilitation effect for correctly predicted elements is due to a match of predicted and encountered sem...

When is the information a quantifier provides available in online sentence processing? And how does a sentence-initial negative quantifier influence the processing of words that are strongly predictable in the non-negated/ affirmative version of the sentence? We used 60 German affirmative sentences where the sentence-final noun was either highly pr...

Previous work in ERP research on the predictability of linguistic input has primarily focused on local predictions such as the next lexical element in highly- constrained contexts (Van Petten & Luka, 2012). High predictability in the lexical domain has been linked to reduced N400 amplitude (Federmeier, 2007). Here we present ERP-data from German th...

Counterfactual conditionals are frequently used in language to express potentially valid reasoning from factually false suppositions. Counterfactuals provide two pieces of information: their literal meaning expresses a suppositional dependency between an antecedent (If the dice had been rigged…) and a consequent (… then the game would have been unf...

A common view in sentence processing models is that the parser initially builds a phrase structure, which is the base for predictions about subsequent elements (e.g. Friederici, 2002). The present experiment examined the effect of punctuation in a paradigm similar to the one that delivered most of the evidence for this assumption. We investigated t...

In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated the relationship between the subject preference in the resolution of subject-object ambiguities in German embedded clauses and semantic word order constraints (i.e., prominence hierarchies relating to the specificity/referentiality of noun phrases, case assignment and thematic role assignment). Our c...

Since second language (L2) processing has been investigated with Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), there is an ongoing debate whether native speakers and L2 learners have access to the same neural processing capacities and therefore should show comparable ERP responses to linguistic stimuli. With respect to syntactic processing, small changes in the...

Patients with altered states of consciousness continue to constitute a major challenge in terms of clinical assessment, treatment and daily management. Furthermore, the exploration of brain function in severely brain-damaged patients represents a unique lesional approach to the scientific study of consciousness. Electroencephalography is one means...

This paper demonstrates systematic cross-linguistic differences in the electrophysiological correlates of conflicts between form and meaning ("semantic reversal anomalies"). These engender P600 effects in English and Dutch (e.g. Kolk et al., 2003; Kuperberg et al., 2003), but a biphasic N400 - late positivity pattern in German (Schlesewsky and Born...

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to examine the interplay of structure building and the integration of morphosyntactic information during incremental parsing. The critical sentence conditions examined the processing of verbs that were ambiguous between a clause-initial finite main verb analysis and an analysis as an (homophonous) infinitiv...

Classical views on the electrophysiology of language assume that different event-related potential (ERP) components index distinct linguistic subdomains. Hence, left-anterior negativities are often viewed as correlates of rule-based linguistic knowledge, whereas centro-parietal negativities (N400s) are taken to reflect (non-rule-based) semantic mem...

This paper examines the hypothesis that grammatical function reanalyses in simple sentences should not be treated as phrase structure revisions, but rather as increased costs in “linking” an argument from a syntactic to a semantic representation. To this end, we investigated whether subject–object reanalyses in German verb-final sentences can be as...

Word order freedom is a property of languages that intuitively correlates with morphological richness: the presence of case marking allows for arguments to be interpreted correctly irrespective of their position in a sentence. The correlation is not absolute, however, as there are languages with flexible word order and no case marking (e.g. Chinese...

We present event-related brain potential evidence from language comprehension that the N400-modulation during noun-phrase integration is a function of the type of referential dependency that is established (identity versus inference) and the saliency (in the following understood as the sum of factors that influence the degree of accessibility of an...

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We present event-related potential evidence from language comprehension that processing conflicts arising from the same linguistic domain and appearing within the same time range do not interact when they draw upon distinct underlying neural populations. Thus, a combined violation of two morphosyntactic information types, number-agreement and case,...

One of the most fundamental assumptions regarding sentence comprehension is that it proceeds incrementally, with each incoming word integrated immediately into the syntactic structure already built (e.g. Crocker, 1994). It is also commonly held that, when there are multiple possibilities as to how such an integration might be performed, the process...

Successful language comprehension depends not only on the involvement of different domain-specific linguistic processes, but also on their respective time-courses. Both aspects of the comprehension process can be examined by means of event-related brain potentials (ERPs), which not only provide a direct reflection of human brain activity within the...

We address the possibility of combining the results from hemodynamic and electrophysiological methods for the study of cognitive processing of language. The hemodynamic method we use is Event-Related fMRI, and the electrophysiological method measures Event-Related Band Power (ERBP) of the EEG signal. The experimental technique allows us to approach...

The language processing system is often confronted with conflict engendering events that require resolution. The enhanced processing costs thus arising have long been used to gain insight into comprehension mechanisms. A promising methodological approach to this area of research became available with the advent of event-related potentials (ERPs), w...

Um die der Sprachverarbeitung zugrundeliegenden elektrophysiologische Prozesse angemessen erfassen zu können, müssen sowohl die zeitlichen als auch räumlichen Parameter des Elektroenzephalogramms (EEG) untersucht werden. Ergebnisse aus EEG-Experimenten zur Untersuchung von Sprachverarbeitungsprozessen beruhen nahezu ausschließlich auf der Methode d...

The neural correlates of conscious awareness during successful memory retrieval were examined. In a recognition test, subjects indicated whether they consciously recalled the event in which a word was earlier presented (Remembering), or whether they recognized it on the basis that it was familiar in the absence of recollection (Knowing). An early E...

Tonic and phasic (event-related) theta band power changes were analyzed in a sample of 8 dyslexic and 8 control children. Previous research with healthy subjects suggests that electroencephalograph (EEG) theta activity reflects the encoding of new information into working memory. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the processin...

Previous research with healthy subjects suggests that the lower alpha band reflects attentional whereas the upper alpha band semantic processes. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether dyslexics show deficits in attentional control and/or semantic encoding. The EEG was recorded while subjects were reading numbers, words and pseudowo...

Is an increase in theta during retrieval due (primarily) to the access of a stored code or to more general processes? The electroencephalogram was recorded while subjects performed a recognition task with pictures. According to the event-related desynchronization/synchronization method, the percentage of band power changes was calculated during enc...

This study aims to resolve a paradox. Experiments measuring alpha band power report an event related decrease (desynchronization) in alpha activity, whereas those measuring evoked alpha report synchronization. During a recognition memory task with human subjects, we measured the evoked (phase locked) and induced (not phase locked) alpha response. T...

Recent research indicates that an increase in theta band power is related to episodic memory performance. In this study with human subjects, the evoked (time locked) and induced (not time locked) theta response is analyzed in a recognition task. The results show a strong evoked theta response during an early retrieval period of up to 400 ms. Only f...