How the Brain Understands Spoken and Sung Sentences.

The present study investigates whether meaning is similarly extracted from spoken and sung sentences. For this purpose, subjects listened to semantically correct and incorrect sentences while performing a correctness judgement task. In order to examine underlying neural mechanisms, a multi-methodological approach was chosen combining two neuroscientific methods with behavioral data.

EEG potentials predict upcoming emergency brakings during simulated driving.

Emergency braking assistance has the potential to prevent a large number of car crashes. State-of-the-art systems operate in two stages. Basic safety measures are adopted once external sensors indicate a potential upcoming crash.

The impact of proficiency on syntactic second-language processing of German and Italian: evidence from event-related potentials.

The present study investigated the role of proficiency in late second-language (L2) processing using comparable stimuli in German and Italian. Both sets of stimuli consisted of simple active sentences including a word category violation, a morphosyntactic agreement violation, or a combination of the two. Four experiments were conducted to study high- and low-proficiency L2 learners of German as well as high- and low-proficiency L2 learners of Italian.

When word category information encounters morphosyntax: an ERP study.

The present study investigated the relationship between two different syntactic information types, namely word category and morphosyntax. The event-related brain potential (ERP) pattern of acoustically presented sentences containing two syntactic anomalies (word category and subject-verb agreement) was compared to the ERP response to sentences containing a single violation. The ERPs for the agreement violation revealed a left anterior negativity (LAN) indicating the detection of the morphosyntactic error, followed by a P600 reflecting processes of reanalysis.