Search

Radboud University, 29 maart 2023, Promotores : Hagoort, P., Hoop, H. de Co-promotor : Martin, A.E., Contains fulltext : 290384.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access)

Radboud University, 01 juni 2023, Promotor : Hagoort, P. Co-promotor : Ostarek, M., Contains fulltext : 292962.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access), The neural correlates of language processing have been mostly studied from a perceptive point of view (i.e. while listening or reading). Studies with speaking are instead rarer, because fMRI is very sensitive to movement in the scanner, such as the movement of the jaw elicited by speaking. In addition, it is harder to run experiments where participants speak, because it is almost impossible to have experimental control over what participants will say, without telling them exactly what to say (for example by reading). Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to focus on brain activity during the productive side of language, and to understand to what extent what we learnt about language comprehension can be extended to language production. This thesis presents four studies that focus on different aspects of sentence production and comprehension with different tasks. Three chapters focus on brain activity and the connectivity between brain regions during syntactic processing, using both a task design and a naturalistic paradigm. One chapter focuses on the neural responses to compositional processing during sentence production. The results suggest that there are some differences in the brain responses to production and comprehension, both spatially and in the timing of responses, but overall it appears that the same brain regions are used for linguistic processing during speaking and listening.

Radboud University, 29 maart 2023, Promotores : Hagoort, P., Hoop, H. de Co-promotor : Martin, A.E., Contains fulltext : 290384.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access), To make sentences, we sequence words one by one, as if those words were beads on a chain. So from the outside, sentences are linear, but underneath that linear sequence is a certain type of structure. That structure is hierarchical, meaning that words are combined into constituents, which are then combined again with other words into larger constituents, and so on. This can be seen, for example, in the ambiguity of a sentence like "the woman looks at the man with the binoculars". This sentence has two meanings, while none of the words is ambiguous. The ambiguity follows from the fact that "with the binoculars" can be linked to both "the man" and "saw the man". In the former, there is a man with binoculars being watched by a woman, and in the latter, the woman uses the binoculars to watch the man. To understand language, we need to construct a hierarchically organised structure from linear inputs. This thesis is about how we do that. To answer this question, Cas looked at both human behaviour and electrical brain activity in neurolinguistic experiments.

Radboud University, 08 november 2023, Promotores : Verhoeven, L.T.W., Hagoort, P. Co-promotor : Janzen, G., Contains fulltext : 297286.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access)

Radboud University, 24 januari 2020, Promotores : Hagoort, P., Norris, D.G. Co-promotor : Weber, K.M., Contains fulltext : 226483.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud University, 24 januari 2020, Promotores : Hagoort, P., Norris, D.G. Co-promotor : Weber, K.M., Contains fulltext : 226483.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud University, 17 december 2020, Promotor : Hagoort, P. Co-promotor : Schoffelen, J.M., Contains fulltext : 227394.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access), The brain is capable of responding to the environment dynamically and thus producing the appropriate behavior. This happens for example by changing the physical connections in the brain, but on a short time scale especially by tuning the relevant brain areas to each other through brain waves. I investigated how brain waves affect local brain activity and how this changes behavior. I did this by letting volunteers do computer tasks while recording brain activity with an MEG device. For example, they had to respond to a changing image. I showed how the strength of the characteristic brain signal of that image depends on the presence of fast brain waves. If the presence of fast brain waves was high in the visual brain area, the characteristic brain signal was stronger and people reacted faster to it. This shows that fast brain waves are related to the efficiency of the brain process.

Radboud University, 02 oktober 2020, Promotor : Hagoort, P. Co-promotor : Kösem, A.V.M., Contains fulltext : 222089.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

2019 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (13-16 September 2019, Berlin, Germany), Contains fulltext : 208239.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access), Prediction in language has traditionally been studied using simple designs in which neural responses to expected and unexpected words are compared in a categorical fashion. However, these designs have been contested as being `prediction encouraging', potentially exaggerating the importance of prediction in language understanding. A few recent studies have begun to address these worries by using model-based approaches to probe the effects of linguistic predictability in naturalistic stimuli (e.g. continuous narrative). However, these studies so far only looked at very local forms of prediction, using models that take no more than the prior two words into account when computing a word's predictability. Here, we extend this approach using a state-of-the-art neural language model that can take roughly 500 times longer linguistic contexts into account. Predictability estimates from the neural network offer a much better fit to EEG data from subjects listening to naturalistic narrative than simpler models, and reveal strong surprise responses akin to the P200 and N400. These results show that predictability effects in language are not a side-effect of simple designs, and demonstrate the practical use of recent advances in AI for the cognitive neuroscience of language.

Radboud University, 05 februari 2018, Promotores : Hagoort, P., McQueen, J.M. Co-promotores : Acheson, D.J., Schoffelen, J.M., Contains fulltext : 180052.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud University, 29 maart 2017, Promotor : Hagoort, P. Co-promotor : Willems, R.M., Contains fulltext : 167549.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 14 september 2015, Promotores : Özyürek, A., Hagoort, P., Contains fulltext : 143184.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 22 mei 2014, Promotor : Hagoort, P. Co-promotor : Lange, F.P. de, Contains fulltext : 129404.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 07 februari 2013, Promotores : Buitelaar, J.K., Hagoort, P., Item does not contain fulltext

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 22 oktober 2013, Promotores : Hagoort, P., Majid, A. Co-promotor : Casasanto, D., Contains fulltext : 116516.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 07 februari 2013, Promotores : Buitelaar, J.K., Hagoort, P., Contains fulltext : 102332.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 16 april 2012, Promotores : Hagoort, P., Norris, D.G., Contains fulltext : 93547.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 05 december 2012, Promotores : Verhoeven, L.T.W., Hagoort, P. Co-promotores : Segers, P.C.J., Alphen, P.M. van, Contains fulltext : 100601.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 16 maart 2011, Promotor : Indefrey, P., Contains fulltext : 84477.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 11 oktober 2011, Promotores : Hagoort, P., Yang, Y. Co-promotor : Bastiaansen, M.C.M., Contains fulltext : 91236.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 16 maart 2011, Promotores : Indefrey, P., Hagoort, P., Contains fulltext : 84477.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 10 februari 2011, Promotores : Hagoort, P., Norris, D.G. Co-promotor : Bastiaansen, M.C.M., Contains fulltext : 83241.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 25 augustus 2010, Promotores : Hagoort, P., Fries, P. Co-promotor : Jensen, O., Contains fulltext : 81998.pdf ( ) (Open Access)

RU Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 16 januari 2009, Promotor : Hagoort, P. Co-promotor : Özyürek, A., Item does not contain fulltext

RU Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 23 december 2009, Promotores : Verhoeven, L.T.W., Hagoort, P. Co-promotores : Brink, D. van den, Balkom, L.J.M. van, Contains fulltext : 74711.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

RU Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 14 maart 2008, Promotor : Hagoort, P. Co-promotor : Toni, I., Contains fulltext : 73602.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

RU Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 22 oktober 2007, Promotores : Hagoort, P., Cutler, A., Contains fulltext : 30213_contseatt.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access), Word segmentation, or detecting word boundaries in continuous speech, is not an easy task. Spoken language does not contain silences to indicate word boundaries and words partly overlap due to coarticalution. Still, adults listening to their native language perceive speech as individual words. They are able to combine different distributional cues in the language, such as the statistical distribution of sounds and metrical cues, with lexical information, to efficiently detect word boundaries. Infants in the first year of life do not command these cues. However, already between seven and ten months of age, before they know word meaning, infants learn to segment words from speech. This important step in language acquisition is the topic of this dissertation. In chapter 2, the first Event Related Brain Potential (ERP) study on word segmentation in Dutch ten-month-olds is discussed. The results show that ten-month-olds can already segment words with a strong-weak stress pattern from speech and they need roughly the first half of a word to do so. Chapter 3 deals with segmentation of words beginning with a weak syllable, as a considerable number of words in Dutch do not follow the predominant strong-weak stress pattern. The results show that ten-month-olds still largely rely on the strong syllable in the language, and do not show an ERP response to the initial weak syllable. In chapter 4, seven-month-old infants' segmentation of strong-weak words was studied. An ERP response was found to strong-weak words presented in sentences. However, a behavioral response was not found in an additional Headturn Preference Procedure study. There results suggest that the ERP response is a precursor to the behavioral response that infants show at a later age.

RU Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 29 september 2005, Promotor : Hagoort, P., Contains fulltext : 26982_agraco.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Contains fulltext : 56231.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access), This dissertation focuses on syntactic comprehension problems in patients with Broca's aphasia from an electrophysiological perspective. The central objective of this dissertation was to further explore what syntax-related event-related brain potential (ERP) effects can reveal about the nature of the deficit that underlies syntactic comprehension problems in patients with Broca's aphasia. Chapter two to four describe experiments in which event-related brain potentials were recorded while subjects (Broca patients, non-aphasic patients with a right-hemisphere lesion, and healthy elderly controls) were presented with sentences that contained either violations of syntactic constraints or were syntactically correct. Chapter two investigates ERP effects of subject-verb agreement violations in the different subject groups, and seeks to answer the following questions: Do agrammatic comprehenders show sensitivity to subject-verb agreement violations as indicated by a syntax-related ERP effect? In addition, does the severity of the syntactic comprehension impairment in the Broca patients affect the ERP responses? Chapter three describes an investigation of whether Broca patients show sensitivity to violations of word order as indicated by a syntax-related ERP effect, and whether the ERP responses in the Broca patients are affected by the severity of their syntactic comprehension impairment. Chapter four reports on ERP effects of violations of word-category. In addition, also a semantic violation condition was added to track possible dissociations in the sensitivity to semantic and syntactic information in the Broca patients. Chapter five describes the development of a paradigm in which the electrophysiological approach and the classical sentence-picture matching approach are combined. In this chapter, the ERP method is applied to study on-line thematic role assignment in Broca patients during sentence-picture matching. Also the relation between ERP effects and behavioral resp

RU Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 15 januari 2004, Promotor : Hagoort, P. Co-promotor : Brown, C.M., Contains fulltext : 64798.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access), The aim of this thesis was to gain more insight into spoken-word comprehension and the influence of sentence-contextual information on these processes using ERPs. By manipulating critical words in semantically constraining sententes, in semantic or syntactic sense, and examining the consequences in the electrophysiological signal (e.g., elicitation of ERP components such as the N400, N200, LAN, and P600), three questions were tackled: I At which moment is context information used in the spoken-word recognition process? II What is the temporal relationship between lexical selection and integration of the meaning of a spoken word into a higher-order level representeation of the preceding sentence? III What is the time course of the processing of different sources of linguistic information obtained from the context, such as phonological, semantic and syntactic information, during spoken-word comprehension? From the results of this thesis it can be concluded that sentential context already exerts an influence on spoken-word processing at approximately 200 ms after word onset. In addition, semantic integration is attempted before a spoken word can be selected on the basis of the acoustic signal, i.e. before lexical selection is completed. Finally, knowledge of the syntactic category of a word is not needed before semantic integration can take place. These findings, therefore, were interpreted as providing evidence for an account of cascaded spoken-word processing that proclaims an optimal use of contextual information during spoken-word identification. Optimal use is accomplished by allowing for semantic and syntactic processing to take place in parallel after bottom-up activation of a set of candidates, and lexical integration to proceed with a limited number of candidates that still match the acoustic input