The neurophysiological basis of word order variations in German

This paper aims to dissociate grammatical and general cognitive (e.g., working-memory based) accounts of the processing costs elicited by word order variations in German. To this end, we present a study using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), in which dislocated arguments were instantiated either by non-pronominal or by pronominal noun phrases. This manipulation allows for a dissociation of the two competing accounts, since only a dislocation of non-pronominal arguments gives rise to a non-canonical structure. The results show that (a) in sentences with non-pronominal arguments, the determiner of a non-canonical noun phrase elicited a broadly distributed negativity, and (b) in sentences with pronominal arguments, no differences were observed for object- vs. subject-initial word orders. These findings show that the human parser is sensitive to fine-grained grammatical regularities. We therefore argue that the negativity is a reflection of a local syntactic mismatch, rather than of an increase in working-memory load.     

Information about a layperson's knowledge supports experts in giving effective and efficient online advice to laypersons

To give effective and efficient advice to laypersons, experts should adapt their explanations to the layperson's knowledge. However, experts often fail to consider the limited domain knowledge of laypersons. To support adaptation in asynchronous helpdesk communication, researchers provided computer experts with information about a layperson's knowledge. A dialogue experiment (N = 80 dyads of experts and laypersons) was conducted that varied the displayed information. Rather than sensitizing the experts to generally improve the intelligibility of their explanations, the individuating information about the layperson enabled them to make specific partner adjustments that increased the effectiveness and efficiency of the communication. The results are suggestive of ways in which the provision of instructional explanations could be enhanced in Internet-based communication.     

Multisensory processing in the redundant-target effect: a behavioral and event-related potential study

Participants respond more quickly to two simultaneously presented target stimuli of two different modalities (redundant targets) than would be predicted from their reaction times to the unimodal targets. To examine the neural correlates of this redundant-target effect, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to auditory, visual, and bimodal standard and target stimuli presented at two locations (left and right of central fixation). Bimodal stimuli were combinations of two standards, two targets, or a standard and a target, presented either from the same or from different locations. Responses generally were faster for bimodal stimuli than for unimodal stimuli and were faster for spatially congruent than for spatially incongruent bimodal events. ERPs to spatially congruent and spatially incongruent bimodal stimuli started to differ over the parietal cortex as early as 160 msec after stimulus onset. The present study suggests that hearing and seeing interact at sensory-processing stages by matching spatial information across modalities.     

Naive optics: acting on mirror reflections

It is known that naive observers have striking misconceptions about mirror reflections. In 5 experiments, this article systematically extends the findings to graphic stimuli, to interactive visual tasks, and finally to tasks involving real mirrors. The results show that the perceptual knowledge of nonexpert adults is far superior to their conceptual knowledge. Whereas conceptual errors include the assumption of left-right reversals in mirror images and often blatant extensions of the boundary of mirror space, the perceptual context prevents most such errors. However, a consistent bias to misjudge objects in mirrors too far to the outside is demonstrable in all cases including tasks with real mirrors. The authors present a 2-stage hypothesis consisting of an implicit bias of judging the mirror surface to be turned toward the observer's line of sight followed by a normalization that becomes explicit.     

Pitch perception in children with autistic spectrum disorders

This study investigated the accuracy of musical pitch detection in children with autistic spectrum disorders as compared with typically developing children. Seventeen children on the autistic spectrum (M(age) =9.34, SD(age) =1.12) and 13 typically developing, chronological age-matched children (M(age) =9.13, SD(age) =1.68) took part in the current study. Children were required to listen to four tones, which were paired with four different pictures and asked to learn the combinations. The children were then assessed for their ability to identify the previously learned tones, when they were presented as single tones and when they were embedded in chords and discords. No significant group differences were found. However, after subdividing the clinical group according to their diagnosis of autism or Asperger's syndrome, the results indicated a slightly superior disembedding ability in participants with Asperger's syndrome. The findings are discussed in terms of the weak central coherence concept.     

The P600 as an indicator of syntactic ambiguity

In a study using event-related brain potentials, we show that the current characterization of the P600 component as an indicator of revision processes (reanalysis and repair) in sentence comprehension must be extended to include the recognition of syntactic ambiguity. By comparing the processing of ambiguous and unambiguous sentence constituents in German, we show that the P600 is elicited when our language processing system has syntactic alternatives at a certain item given in the input string. That the P600 is sensitive to syntactic ambiguity adds crucial evidence to current debates in psycholinguistic modelling, as the results clearly favour parallel models of syntactic processing which assume that ambiguity is recognized and costly.     

Grammar overrides frequency: evidence from the online processing of flexible word order

We show that online processing difficulties induced by word order variations in German cannot be attributed to the relative infrequency of the constructions in question, but rather appear to reflect the application of grammatical principles during parsing. Event-related brain potentials revealed that dative-marked objects in the initial position of an embedded sentence do not elicit a neurophysiologically distinct response from subjects, whereas accusative-marked objects do. These differences are predictable on the basis of grammatical distinctions (i.e. underlying linguistic properties), but not on the basis of frequency information (i.e. a superficial linguistic property). We therefore conclude that the former, but not the latter, guides syntactic integration during online parsing.     

The development of organizational strategies in children: evidence from a microgenetic longitudinal study

The authors examined memory on a sort-recall task in children 8 to 12 years of age. Children were first classified as either strategic or nonstrategic on a sort-recall pretest and then participated in an 11-week microgenetic study involving nine sessions. Strategy use was assessed on each trial. Consistent with past longitudinal research, changes from nonstrategic to strategic behavior occurred suddenly rather than gradually. Once children began using organizational strategies, their recall performance improved immediately. Deliberate strategy use was clearly reflected by sorting behavior during encoding but not in clustering during recall. Conclusions about whether there are children with utilization deficiencies are thus affected by how the concept is defined and whether sorting or clustering is taken as the indicator of spontaneous strategy use.     

Can the spotlight of attention be shaped like a doughnut? Evidence from steady-state visual evoked potentials

Visual attention enables observers to extract and process high-priority information in the visual field. Controversy remains as to whether or not observers can ignore information that falls within the spatial beam of attention. We used an objective physiological measure, the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP), to investigate this question. A stream of flickering small, uppercase letters was embedded in the center of a stream of large, uppercase letters. A unitary beam would result in no difference of the SSVEP amplitude elicited by the small letter stream when it was attended versus ignored (i.e., when subjects attended the large letter stream). Contrary to this prediction, SSVEP amplitude increased by almost 100% when the small letter stream was attended compared with when it was ignored. The results support the notion that the attentional spotlight can be formed like a doughnut, processing central information differentially depending on whether it is attended or ignored.