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Introduction
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May 1995 - present
Max-Planck-Institut für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften
January 1994 - May 1995
Publications
Publications (151)
Adult second language (L2) learning is a challenging enterprise inducing neuroplastic changes in the human brain. However, it remains unclear how the structural language connectome and its subnetworks change during adult L2 learning. The current study investigated longitudinal changes in white matter (WM) language networks in each hemisphere, as we...
Recent neurobiological models on language suggest that auditory sentence comprehension is supported by a coordinated temporal interplay within a left-dominant brain network, including the posterior inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG), posterior superior temporal gyrus and sulcus (pSTG/STS), and angular gyrus (AG). Here, we probed the timing and causal re...
During multisensory speech perception, slow delta oscillations (∼1 - 3 Hz) in the listener's brain synchronize with the speech signal, likely engaging in speech signal decomposition. Notable fluctuations in the speech amplitude envelope, resounding speaker prosody, temporally align with articulatory and body gestures and both provide complementary...
Listeners are sensitive to a speaker’s individual language use and generate expectations for particular speakers. It is unclear, however, how such expectations affect online language processing. In the present EEG study, we presented thirty-two participants with auditory sentence stimuli of two speakers. Speakers differed in their use of two partic...
During multimodal speech perception, slow delta oscillations (~1 - 3 Hz) in the listener’s brain synchronize with speech signal, likely reflecting signal decomposition at the service of comprehension. In particular, fluctuations imposed onto the speech amplitude envelope by a speaker’s prosody seem to temporally align with articulatory and body ges...
The idea that external rhythms synchronize attention cross-modally has attracted much interest and scientific inquiry. Yet, whether associated attentional modulations are indeed rhythmical in that they spring from and map onto an underlying meter has not been clearly established. Here we tested this idea while addressing the shortcomings of previou...
Effective natural communication requires listeners not only to incorporate very general linguistic principles which evolved during a life time, but also other information like the specific individual language use of a particular interlocutor. Traditionally, research has focused on the general linguistic rules and brain-science has shown a left hemi...
Sentence comprehension requires the rapid analysis of semantic and syntactic information. These processes are supported by a left hemispheric dominant fronto-temporal network, including left posterior inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG) and posterior superior temporal gyrus/sulcus (pSTG/STS). Previous electroencephalography (EEG) studies have associated...
Sentence comprehension requires the assignment of thematic relations between the verb and its noun arguments in order to determine who is doing what to whom. In some languages, such as English, word order is the primary syntactic cue. In other languages, such as German, case-marking is additionally used to assign thematic roles. During development...
Previous electroencephalography (EEG) studies have associated semantic expectancy within a sentence with a modulation of the N400 and syntactic gender violations with increases in the LAN and P600. Here, we combined focal perturbations of neural activity by means of short bursts of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with simultaneous EEG recor...
Predictions allow for efficient human communication. To be efficient, listeners’ predictions need to be adapted to the communicative context. Here we show that during speech processing this adaptation is a highly flexible and selective process that is able to fine-tune itself to individual language styles of specific interlocutors. In a newly devel...
fMRI data on speaker-specific syntactic expectations. Paradigm allows to disentangle syntactic complexity processing from expectancy processing based on statistical distributions.
Research has revealed a special mechanoreceptor, called C-tactile (CT) afferent, that is situated in hairy skin and that seems relevant for the processing of social touch. We pursued a possible role of this receptor in the perception of other social signals such as a person’s voice. Participants completed three sessions in which they heard surprise...
How to make sure that one’s utterances are understood as intended when not facing each other? In order to convey communicative intentions, in digital communication emoticons and pragmatic cues are frequently used. Such cueing becomes even more crucial for implied interpretations (e.g., irony) that cannot be understood literally, but require extra i...
Grand average ERPs to literal (black line) and ironic (blue line) sentence final words that were either cued (dotted line) or uncued (solid line).
When people talk their speech is often accompanied by gestures. Although it is known that
co-speech gestures can influence face-to-face communication, it is currently unclear to what
extent they are actively used, and under which premises they are prioritized to facilitate
communication. We investigated these open questions in two experiments that...
This study explored the temporal course of vocal and emotional sound processing. Participants detected rare repetitions in a stimulus stream comprising neutral and surprised nonverbal exclamations and spectrally rotated control sounds. Spectral rotation preserved some acoustic and emotional properties of the vocal originals. Event-related potential...
Dyslexia is a reading disorder with strong associations with KIAA0319 and DCDC2. Both genes play a functional role in spike time precision of neurons. Strikingly, poor readers show an imprecise encoding of fast transients of speech in the auditory brainstem. Whether dyslexia risk genes are related to the quality of sound encoding in the auditory br...
ERP study that demonstrates online effects of speaker-specific expectations during language comprehension.
Previous behavioral studies showed that it is not until around the age of seven that German children reliably use case markers for the interpretation of complex sentences. Some explanations of this late development suggested that children might have difficulties in perceptual differentiation between function words that carry case information. We te...
Neurodegenerative changes of the basal ganglia in idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD) lead to motor deficits as well as general cognitive decline. Given these impairments, the question arises as to whether motor and nonmotor deficits can be ameliorated similarly. We reason that a domain-general sensorimotor circuit involved in temporal processing...
In face-to-face communication, speech is typically enriched by gestures. Clearly, not all people gesture in the same way, and the present study explores whether such individual differences in gesture style are taken into account during the perception of gestures that accompany speech. Participants were presented with one speaker that gestured in a...
Pointing toward concrete objects is a well-known and efficient communicative strategy. Much less is known about the communicative effectiveness of abstract pointing where the pointing gestures are directed to “empty space.” McNeill's (2003) observations suggest that abstract pointing can be used to establish referents in gesture space, without the...
This experiment investigates the integration of gesture and speech from a multisensory perspective. In a disambiguation paradigm, participants were presented with short videos of an actress uttering sentences like "She was impressed by the BALL, because the GAME/DANCE…." The ambiguous noun (BALL) was accompanied by an iconic gesture fragment contai...
Research on language comprehension using event-related potentials (ERPs) reported distinct ERP components reliably related to the processing of semantic (N400) and syntactic information (P600). Recent ERP studies have challenged this well-defined distinction by showing P600 effects for semantic and pragmatic anomalies. So far, it is still unresolve...
Recent research suggests that the brain routinely binds together information from gesture and speech. However, most of this research focused on the integration of representational gestures with the semantic content of speech. Much less is known about how other aspects of gesture, such as emphasis, influence the interpretation of the syntactic relat...
Although the neurocognitive processes underlying the comprehension of figurative language, especially metaphors and idioms, have been studied extensively, less is known about the processing of irony. In two experiments using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we examined the types of cognitive processes involved in the comprehension of ironic a...
Numerous studies have provided evidence that physical activity promotes cortical plasticity in the adult brain and in turn facilitates learning. However, until now, the effect of simultaneous physical activity (e.g. bicycling) on learning performance has not been investigated systematically. The current study aims at clarifying whether simultaneous...
The present series of experiments explores several issues related to gesture-speech integration and synchrony during sentence processing. To be able to more precisely manipulate gesture-speech synchrony, we used gesture fragments instead of complete gestures, thereby avoiding the usual long temporal overlap of gestures with their coexpressive speec...
Compounding, the concatenation of words (e.g. dishwasher), is an important mechanism across many languages. This study investigated whether access of initial compound constituents occurs immediately or, alternatively, whether it is delayed until the last constituent (i.e. the head). Electroencephalogram was measured as participants listened to Germ...
An important issue in irony comprehension concerns when and how listeners integrate extra-linguistic and linguistic information to compute the speaker's intended meaning. To assess whether knowledge about the speaker's communicative style impacts the brain response to irony, ERPs were recorded as participants read short passages that ended either w...
Iconic gestures are spontaneous hand movements that illustrate certain contents of speech and, as such, are an important part of face-to-face communication. This experiment targets the brain bases of how iconic gestures and speech are integrated during comprehension. Areas of integration were identified on the basis of two classic properties of mul...
The present study investigated the time-course of semantic integration in auditory compound word processing. Compounding is a productive mechanism of word formation that is used frequently in many languages. Specifically, we examined whether semantic integration is incremental or is delayed until the head, the last constituent in German, is availab...
An important issue in irony comprehension concerns when and how listeners integrate extra-linguistic and linguistic information to compute the speaker's intended meaning. To assess whether knowledge about the speaker's communicative style impacts the brain response to irony, ERPs were recorded as participants read short passages that ended either w...
The understanding of actions of tool use depends on the motor act that is performed and on the function of the objects involved in the action. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the processes that derive both kinds of information in a task in which inserting actions had to be judged. The actions were presented as two consecutive...
We investigate how L1 phonology and semantics affect processing of interlingual homographs by manipulating language context before, and auditory input during, a visual experiment in the L2. Three experiments contained German--English homograph primes (gift=German "poison") in English sentences and was performed by German (L1) learners of English (L...
Der folgende Beitrag stellt aktuelle Themen der kognitiven Neurowissenschaft vor. Anhand der Marr'schen (1982) Konzeption wird eine modulare Analyse visueller selektiver Verarbeitung vorgestellt. Moderne bildgebende Techniken werden beschrieben. Es wird gezeigt, daß mit den Methoden der eroigniskorrelierten Potentiale und der ereigniskorrolierten F...
In communicative situations, speech is often accompanied by gestures. For example, speakers tend to illustrate certain contents of speech by means of iconic gestures which are hand movements that bear a formal relationship to the contents of speech. The meaning of an iconic gesture is determined both by its form as well as the speech context in whi...
Event-related brain potential (ERP) studies have shown distinct ERP components reliably related to semantic anomalies (N400) and to syntactic anomalies (P600). Recent ERP studies have challenged these well-defined components in which P600 effects were triggered by semantic reversal or thematic anomalies (Van Herten et al. 2005, Hoeks et al. 2004)....
The present series of experiments explored the extent to which iconic gestures convey information not found in speech. Electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded as participants watched videos of a person gesturing and speaking simultaneously. The experimental sentences contained an unbalanced homonym in the initial part of the sentence (e.g., She con...
In two experiments, we investigated the morphosyntactic decomposition and semantic composition of acoustically presented German compound words. A left-anterior negativity (LAN) was found in the ERP for gender incongruent, initial compound constituents although these constituents are syntactically irrelevant in German. This LAN provides online evide...
The present study investigated the processing of two types of artificial grammars by means of event-related brain potentials. Two categories of meaningless CV syllables were applied in each grammar type. The two grammars differed with regard to the type of the underlying rule. The finite-state grammar (FSG) followed the rule (AB)n, thereby generati...
Using primed lexical decision, we measured reaction times and event-related brain potentials to targets that had German meanings (boss) of German-English interlingual homograph primes (chef). In an all-English experiment, we tested the effects of (1) global language context created by a first- or second-language film before the experiment, and (2)...
Irony is one of the most frequently used form of figurative language and plays an important role in our daily communication. To comprehend ironic sentences additional, i.e. contextual and pragmatic, information is necessary. This suggests a more demanding processing than literal language understanding. Controversial findings from behavioral studies...
In this study, pianists were tested for learned associations between actions (movements on the piano) and their perceivable sensory effects (piano tones). Actions were examined that required the playing of two-tone sequences (intervals) in a four-choice paradigm. In Experiment 1, the intervals to be played were denoted by visual note stimuli. Concu...
The present study investigated simultaneous processing of language and music using visually presented sentences and auditorily presented chord sequences. Music-syntactically regular and irregular chord functions were presented synchronously with syntactically correct or incorrect words, or with words that had either a high or a low semantic cloze p...
Neurodegenerative changes of the basal ganglia in idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD) lead to motor deficits as well as general cognitive decline. Given these impairments, the question arises as to whether motor and nonmotor deficits can be ameliorated similarly. We reason that a domain-general sensorimotor circuit involved in temporal processing...
In a semantic priming study, we investigated the processing of German-English homographs such as gift (German = "poison", English = "present") in sentence contexts using a joint reaction time (RT)/event-related brain potential (ERP) measure. Native German speakers with intermediate or advanced knowledge of English (N = 48) performed an all-L2 (Engl...
A perceived action can be understood only when information about the action carried out and the objects used are taken into account. It was investigated how spatial and functional information contributes to establishing these relations. Participants observed static frames showing a hand wielding an instrument and a potential target object of the ac...
Recent theories have stressed the role of effect anticipation in action control. Such a mechanism requires the prior acquisition of integrated action-effect associations. The strength of such associations should directly depend on the amount of learning, and therefore be most pronounced in motor experts. Using an interference paradigm, we investiga...
To characterize the regional changes in neuronal couplings and information transfer related to semantic aspects of object recognition in humans we used partial-directed EEG-coherence analysis (PDC). We examined the differences of processing recognizable and unrecognizable pictures as reflected by changes in cortical networks within the time-window...
The present event-related potential (ERP) study examined the role of tone and segmental information in Cantonese word processing. To this end, participants listened to sentences that were either semantically correct or contained a semantically incorrect word. Semantically incorrect words differed from the most expected sentence completion at the to...
The morphosyntactic decomposition of German compound words and a proposed function of linking elements were examined during auditory processing using event-related brain potentials. In Experiment 1, the syntactic gender agreement was manipulated between a determiner and the initial compound constituent (the ''nonhead'' constituent), and between a d...
Meaningful and meaningless hand postures were presented to subjects who had to carry out a semantic discrimination task while electrical brain responses were recorded. Both meaningful and control sets of hand postures were matched as closely as possible. The ERPs elicited by meaningless hand postures showed an anteriorly distributed N300 and a cent...
Hand signs with symbolic meaning can often be utilized more successfully than words to communicate an intention; however, the underlying brain mechanisms are undefined. The present study using magnetoencephalography (MEG) demonstrates that the primary visual, mirror neuron, social recognition and object recognition systems are involved in hand sign...
onsciousness. In contrast, the amplitude of the P1 was unchanged by sedation but markedly decreased during unconsciousness. Conclusion: The results indicate differential effects of propofol sedation on cognitive functions that involve mainly the auditory cortices and cognitive functions that involve the frontal cortices. RECENT findings indicate th...
Behavioral evidence suggests that spoken word recognition involves the temporary activation of multiple entries in a listener's mental lexicon. This phenomenon can be demonstrated in cross-modal word fragment priming (CMWP). In CMWP, an auditory word fragment (prime) is immediately followed by a visual word or pseudoword (target). Experiment 1 inve...
In this study, we applied partial-directed EEG-coherence analysis to assess regional changes in neuronal couplings and information transfer related to semantic processing. We tested the hypothesis whether (and which) processing differences between spoken words and pseudowords are reflected by changes in cortical networks within the time window of a...
Semantics is a key feature of language, but whether or not music can activate brain mechanisms related to the processing of semantic meaning is not known. We compared processing of semantic meaning in language and music, investigating the semantic priming effect as indexed by behavioral measures and by the N400 component of the event-related brain...
It is an open question whether cognitive processes of auditory perception that are mediated by functionally different cortices exhibit the same sensitivity to sedation. The auditory event-related potentials P1, mismatch negativity (MMN), and early right anterior negativity (ERAN) originate from different cortical areas and reflect different stages...
The functional primacy of syntactic over semantic processes was put to test in an auditory event-related brain potentials study using sentences in which the final words were semantically and/or syntactically incongruent with the prior context. Crucially, these words encoded the syntactically relevant word category information in the suffix, availab...
The current experiment assessed the relation between inhibitory mechanisms underlying language processing in working memory (WM) and the influence of a postulated internal cognitive trade-off between lexicon and context factors driving inhibition in sentence processing. Participants with high and low WM span (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980) were present...
In this study, event-related fMRI was used to examine whether the resolution of interference arising from two different information contents activates the same or different neuronal circuitries. In addition, we examined the extent to which these inhibitory control mechanisms are modulated by individual differences in working memory capacity. Two gr...
