index.json

[{"authors":["KK Grohmann","M Kambanaros","E Leivada","B Samuels","PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1734213600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1734213600,"objectID":"7e6d7ab49f25cac6c393564b00e6972c","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/biolinguistics-end-of-year-notice-2024/","publishdate":"2024-12-15T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/biolinguistics-end-of-year-notice-2024/","section":"publication","summary":"End-of-year notice for *Biolinguistics* in 2024 summarizing the major developments at the journal in this year, outlining some basic statistics about reviewing and publishing, as well as thanking reviewers for their work.","tags":["Biolinguistics","editorial","publishing","open access"],"title":"Biolinguistics end-of-year notice 2024","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","N-K Meister","K Slivac","TA Finkbeiner","M Steinbach","AD Friederici","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1734127200,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1734127200,"objectID":"b17e985e4aca5b35996e9ba9ba484c00","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/modality-independenti-core-brain-network-for-language-as-proved-by-sign-language/","publishdate":"2024-12-14T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/modality-independenti-core-brain-network-for-language-as-proved-by-sign-language/","section":"publication","summary":"The human brain has the capacity to automatically compute the grammatical relations of words in sentences, be they spoken or written. This species-specific ability for syntax lies at the core of our capacity for language and is primarily subserved by a left-hemispheric fronto-temporal network consisting of the posterior inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG), as well as the posterior middle temporal gyrus and superior temporal sulcus (pMTG/STS). To date, it remains unclear whether this core network for syntactic processing identified for spoken and written language in hearing people also holds for the processing of the grammatical structure of a natural sign language in deaf people. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a sign language paradigm that systematically varied the presence of syntactic and lexical-semantic information, and meta-analytically defined functional regions-of-interests derived from a large dataset of syntactic processing in hearing non-signers, we demonstrate that deaf native signers of German Sign Language (DGS) also recruit left pIFG and pMTG/STS for computing grammatical relations in sign language—indicating the universality of the core language network. These findings suggest that the human brain evolved a dedicated neural network for processing the grammatical structure of natural languages independent of language modality, which flexibly interacts with different externalization systems depending on the modality of language use.","tags":["sign language","syntax","modality-independence","language network","functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)"],"title":"Modality-independent core brain network for language as proved by sign language","type":"publication"},{"authors":["P Gehlbach","PC Trettenbrein","M Steinbach","N-K Meister"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1733958000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1733958000,"objectID":"ce034d03e45778f8e552b93f82757a70","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/komponenten-von-ikonitzit%C3%A4t-in-der-deutschen-geb%C3%A4rdensprache-dgs/","publishdate":"2024-12-12T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/komponenten-von-ikonitzit%C3%A4t-in-der-deutschen-geb%C3%A4rdensprache-dgs/","section":"talk","summary":"Die Studie untersucht die Iconizität in der Deutschen Gebärdensprache (DSG) aus kompositioneller Perspektive, indem sie die phonologischen und semantischen Parameter von 50 lexikalischen Gebärden analysiert. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass Bewegung und Ort das größte ikonische Potenzial für hörende Non-Signer haben, während semantische Aspekte wie Handlungen, Gegenstände und Körperteile am ehesten identifizierbar sind. Durch diese Analyse soll ein tieferes Verständnis von Iconizität in der DGS gewonnen werden.","tags":["poster presentation","sign language","linguitics","iconicity"],"title":"Komponenten von Ikonitzität in der Deutschen Gebärdensprache (DGS): Phonologische Parameter und semantische Kategorien aus der Perspektive hörender Non-Signer","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","J Bümmerstede","TA Finkbeiner","P Gehlbach","N-K Meister","A Schiefner","PB Schumacher","D Spruijt","M Steinbach","P Perniss"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1733868000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1733868000,"objectID":"8075ec155e6144823258d477a5fd1452","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/towards-a-dgs-lex/","publishdate":"2024-12-11T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/towards-a-dgs-lex/","section":"publication","summary":"Lexical variables such as iconicity or age of acquisition are known to be important sources of variance in psycholinguistic experiments. To control for such variables, researchers working on German Sign Language (DGS) need to use stimuli rated for these constructs (e.g., iconicity) by an independent group of participants before implementing their actual experiment. Up to now, several research groups have made such rating data publicly available but a central resource is currently still lacking. Against this background, this short paper provides a roadmap for the collaborative creation of a so-called “DGS-LEX”, a lexical database for psycholinguistic research on DGS, similar to ASL-LEX. By integrating relevant data from different published and forthcoming studies, this joint effort aims to establish a new database for lexical variables in DGS primarily based upon subjective ratings. (Note: This paper is trilingual. The contents of the English, German, and DGS versions are identical.)","tags":["linguistics","sign language","language","psycholinguistics","lexical database","open science"],"title":"Towards a “DGS-LEX”: A roadmap for the collaborative creation of a psycholinguistic database for German Sign Language (DGS)","type":"publication"},{"authors":["A Bauer","N-K Meister","PC Trettenbrein","L Paulus"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1731538800,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1731538800,"objectID":"4fb6c1c5e563992dd6c6c57294cc4e1b","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/mouthings-in-the-public-german-sign-language-dgs-corpus/","publishdate":"2024-11-14T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/mouthings-in-the-public-german-sign-language-dgs-corpus/","section":"talk","summary":"In this talk we provide an update about our ongoing short-term collaboration supported through ViCom in which we investigate mouthings in the public German Sign Language (DGS) Corpus. We report preliminary results from our first empirical work and analyses and sketch our next steps.\nEnglish ⇔ German Sign Language (DGS) interpreting will be provided for this talk.\n","tags":["sign language","science to science","project presentation"],"title":"Mouthings in the Public German Sign Language (DGS) Corpus","type":"talk"},{"authors":["TA Finkbeiner","N-K Meister","M Steinbach","E Zaccarella","PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1731452400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1731452400,"objectID":"5fa5249bb72294564448e7addf7de99c","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/project-update-parts-of-speech-and-iconicity-in-german-sign-language-2024/","publishdate":"2024-11-13T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/project-update-parts-of-speech-and-iconicity-in-german-sign-language-2024/","section":"talk","summary":"In this talk we provide an update about the work carried out as part of our project since its official start earlier this year. We will report results from our first empirical studies and sketch our next steps and ideas for upcoming experiments.\nEnglish ⇔ German Sign Language (DGS) interpreting will be provided for this talk.\n","tags":["sign language","science to science","project presentation"],"title":"Project update: Parts of speech and iconicity in German Sign Language (DGS)","type":"talk"},{"authors":["P Gehlbach","PC Trettenbrein","M Steinbach","N-K Meister"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1721084400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1721084400,"objectID":"3158b17bdb7878e32fd6664ab0cc98db","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/components-of-iconicity-in-german-sign-language-dgs-hearing-non-signers-perception-of-phonological-and-semantic-parameters-of-iconicity/","publishdate":"2024-07-16T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/components-of-iconicity-in-german-sign-language-dgs-hearing-non-signers-perception-of-phonological-and-semantic-parameters-of-iconicity/","section":"talk","summary":"Iconicity is defined as a perceived resemblance between aspects of a linguistic form and aspects of its associated meaning (Perniss et al. 2010; Perniss and Vigliocco 2014; Dingemanse 2019). Transparency describes a degree of this resemblance, in which a signs meaning can be correctly inferred solely based on its form (Pizzuto and Volterra 2013; Occhino et al. 2017; Sehyr and Emmorey 2019). While interest in iconicity and transparency has increased in recent years, they are predominantly considered in their entirety rather than from a compositional perspective. In this study, we investigate iconicity as a compositional phenomenon, by examining 50 lexical signs in DGS regarding the question which phonological parameters, as well as instantiations of semantic attributes, carry the most iconic potential for hearing non- signers. In our study, we provide a new analysis of qualitative data for 50 lexical signs which was collected within a study by Trettenbrein and Pendzich et al. 2021. The data consists of responses by 30 hearing non-signers regarding the aspects of meaning they recognized in the examined signs. The answers were coded according to four phonological parameters; location, handshape, path movement, and facial expressions, as well as to iconic instantiations of semantic attributes, which we categorized into action, state, item, creature, and body part. In this poster, we present our analysis of this qualitative data with the goal of ascertaining which phonological and semantic parameters carry the most iconic potential for hearing non-signers. A preliminary analysis of the data indicates that movement and location seem to carry the most iconic potential for hearing non-signers with regards to phonology. Semantically, aspects of meaning depicted by iconic instantiations of actions, items, and body parts seem to be the most recognizable and transparent to hearing non-signers.","tags":["poster presentation","sign language","linguitics","iconicity"],"title":"Components of iconicity in German Sign Language (DGS): Hearing non-signer’s perception of phonological and semantic parameters of iconicity","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","N-K Meister","TA Finkbeiner","M Steinbach","AD Friederici","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1720479600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1720479600,"objectID":"222e47059123b21a0a8013844fbbf333","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/isolating-the-neural-correlates-of-lexical-semantic-and-syntactic-processing-in-german-sign-language-dgs/","publishdate":"2024-07-09T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/isolating-the-neural-correlates-of-lexical-semantic-and-syntactic-processing-in-german-sign-language-dgs/","section":"talk","summary":"The human capacity for language is rooted in our ability to combine lexical items into hierarchically structured phrases and sentences, a cognitive process primarily subserved by a left-hemispheric network consisting of posterior inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG) and posterior temporal cortex (pTC; [[1]](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0184-4)). While a recent meta-analysis identified left pIFG as a modality-independent hub for processing signed, spoken, and written language [[2]](https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.25254), several studies of syntactic processing in the visuo-spatial modality of sign languages hitherto have not consistently observed left pIFG and pTC activation [[3](https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.20167), [4](https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01790), [5](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.11.040), [6](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.06.025)]. Against this background, we designed an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment with deaf signers using a factorial design with two independent variables, syntax (SYN) and semantics (SEM) yielding four conditions: (i) sentences in German Sign Language (DGS) including pointing and agreement as markers of spatial syntax ([[7]](https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.511); +SYN +SEM); (ii) lists of unconnected DGS signs matched in length and visual complexity to the sentence stimuli (–SYN +SEM); (iii) so-called “pseudosign” sentences containing markers of spatial syntax (indexing and agreement) but devoid of lexicalized meaning due to the use of signs which do not exists in the participants’ native sign language (+SYN –SEM); and (iv) lists of unconnected “pseudosigns” with no lexicalized meaning (–SYN –SEM). Signs in the DGS conditions were drawn from [[8]](https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01524-y) and controlled for iconicity, frequency, and age of acquisition. Signs and “pseudosigns” were visually matched for place of articulation across conditions. In addition, we controlled the length of the video clips and fit body-pose models [[9]]( http://arxiv.org/abs/1611.08050) to identify possible differences in overall motion [[10]](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.628728). At the time of submission, data analysis is still ongoing. Because our experiment is the first to contrast sentence-level stimuli with lists of signs including a “pseudosign” condition (akin to Jabberwocky stimuli in research on spoken languages), we expect this manipulation to clarify the involvement of pIFG and pTC in syntactic processing in DGS independent of lexical information.","tags":["poster presentation","sign language","syntax","fMRI","neuroimaging","neurolinguistics"],"title":"Isolating the neural correlates of lexical-semantic and syntactic processing in German Sign Language (DGS)","type":"talk"},{"authors":["N-K Meister","PC Trettenbrein","TA Finkbeiner","M Steinbach"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1718838000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1718838000,"objectID":"81ce457b76f5b9b20cea3809967fefcc","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/morphophonologische-unterschiede-in-nomen-verb-paaren-in-der-deutschen-geb%C3%A4rdensprache-dgs/","publishdate":"2024-06-20T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/morphophonologische-unterschiede-in-nomen-verb-paaren-in-der-deutschen-geb%C3%A4rdensprache-dgs/","section":"talk","summary":"In der modernen Ling­uistik herrscht weitestgehend Einig­keit darüber, dass alle Spra­chen der Welt zu­min­dest über Kate­gorien Anlog zu Nomen und Verben ver­fügen. In­wiefern diese beiden Kate­gorien in unter­schied­lichen Sprachen morpho­logisch markiert werden ist Gegen­stand lau­fen­der For­schung­en. In diesem Vor­trag dis­kutier­en wir die morpho­phono­logische Mar­kier­ung von Nomen und Verben in der Deutschen Gebärden­sprache (DGS) an­hand von Daten einer Elizi­tations­studie mit tauben DGS-Nutzern (N = 9). Die Teil­nehmer sahen dabei Videos (N = 83) von sze­nisch­en Dar­stell­ung­en an, die ent­weder eine nomi­nale oder ver­bale Ver­wend­ung einer Ge­bärde zur Folge haben soll­te, und be­schrieb­en diese dann in DGS. In dieser vo­rläufigen Aus­wertung unserer Daten zeigt sich ein Unterschied in der durchschnittlichen Dauer in der Artikulation von Nomen und Verben, die Re­le­vanz von Mund­bild und Mund­gestik für die Nomen-Verb-Unterscheidung, so­wie ein offen­bar fließ­enden Über­gang einiger Verb­ge­bärden zu Con­struct­ed Action. Wir dis­ku­tier­en diese Dat­en vor dem Hinter­grund aktu­eller Theo­rien zum Ver­hält­nis des Lexi­kons zu Ge­stik und Con­struct­ed Action, sowie nicht-lexi­kalistisch­en psycho­lingu­istisch­en Mo­dell­en.\nNotice on sign language interpretation: German ⇔ German Sign Language (DGS) interpreting will be provided for this talk.\n","tags":["talk","sign language","science to science","parts of speech","word categories"],"title":"Morphophonologische Unterschiede in Nomen-Verb-Paaren in der Deutschen Gebärdensprache (DGS)","type":"talk"},{"authors":["N-K Meister","PC Trettenbrein","TA Finkbeiner","M Steinbach"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1707260400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1707260400,"objectID":"ee9a41e2cb65099e652ca6b6b51dcee0","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/gestural-demonstrations-as-a-possible-marker-of-part-of-speech-in-german-sign-language-dgs/","publishdate":"2024-02-07T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/gestural-demonstrations-as-a-possible-marker-of-part-of-speech-in-german-sign-language-dgs/","section":"talk","summary":"The iconic potential of the visuo-spatial modality allows for a direct mapping between different aspects of meaning and the morphophonological form of a signed utterance (Perniss et al., 2010; Schlenker 2018). Yet, in contrast to speech and co-speech gesture, sign and co-sign gesture cannot readily be distinguished because both are produced with the same set of articulators and considerable temporal overlap (Kita \u0026 Emmorey, 2023).\nHere, we investigate the strategies used in German Sign Language (DGS) to morphophonologically mark the distinction between nouns and verbs. We collected data from deaf signers (N = 9, mean age = 40.8) who were asked to watch videos (N = 91) depicting scenes that were designed to elicit either the nominal or the verbal use of a potentially multifunctional DGS sign in the participant’s response. Our preliminary analysis suggests that in DGS, especially iconic verbal signs such as HAIRDRY can be context-dependently supplemented by Constructed Action (CA) involving a gestural demonstration of the action described by the verbal sign. This gestural demonstration can be analysed as a morphophonological part of speech marker. Note that the part of speech and the iconic potential of a sign’s phonological form seems to impact the frequency of CA (Figure 1). The lexically specified non-iconic verbal sign PLAY is not used with CA in our data. Nevertheless, a gestural demonstration for signs like these is not excluded in principle, but the potential appears to be lower. In general, elements of CA seem to primarily occur simultaneously as modifications and/or supplements to a verb’s phonological form, while phonologically and semantically underspecified nouns tend to be complemented by sequentially occurring size and shape specifiers.\nIn sum, our data suggest that the iconic potential of a sign’s form and the respective context mediate whether a strictly conventionalised lexical strategy or CA involving a gestural demonstration combined with lexicalised components may be used by signers. Accordingly, singers can flexibly combine lexical and iconic strategies for making meaning by exploiting the iconic potential of (verb) signs’ phonological forms via the interface to co-sign gesture.\n\nFigure 1: Example of four different lexical DGS signs in our dataset and the total number of productions classified as either lexical nouns, verbs, or as combinations of verbs with Constructed Action (CA). Plots show only isolated productions of signs (excluding compounds as well as nouns followed by size and shape specifiers).\nNotice on sign language interpretation: English ⇔ German Sign Language (DGS) interpreting will be provided for this talk.\n","tags":["talk","sign language","science to science","parts of speech","word categories"],"title":"Gestural demonstrations as a possible marker of part of speech in German Sign Language (DGS)","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","M Maran","J Pohl","TA Finkbeiner","E Zaccarella","AD Friederici","M Steinbach","N-K Meister"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1705269600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1705269600,"objectID":"d8b29cd5b186136abf6b00d595def6ce","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/detection-of-extraneous-visual-signals-does-not-reveal-the-syntactic-structure-of-sign-language/","publishdate":"2024-01-15T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/detection-of-extraneous-visual-signals-does-not-reveal-the-syntactic-structure-of-sign-language/","section":"publication","summary":"Sentences are not just mere strings of words or signs but manifest a complex internal structure. Linguistic research has demonstrated that sign languages and spoken languages both exhibit hierarchical constituent structure which determines how individual elements in a sentence relate to each other. Here, we report the first adaptation of the psycholinguistic “click” paradigm, which aims to demonstrate the relevance of hierarchical constituent structure during auditory language processing, to the visuo-spatial modality of sign languages. We performed two independent online experiments: The main experiment with a group of 53 deaf signers using German Sign Language (DGS) as their primary means of communication and a control experiment with a group of 53 hearing non-signers. Both groups were shown videos of syntactically complex sentences in DGS. A white flash (mimicking the “click” in the auditory domain) to which participants had to respond could occur as an overlay to the video at different levels in the constituent structure. Our pre-registered inferential analyses yielded no effect for our syntactic manipulations, neither in the group of signers nor in the group of non-signers. Additional exploratory analyses suggest general effects of attention during the processing of communicative signals, as even the group of non-signers’ behaviour was influenced by non-manual cues despite their lack of knowledge of DGS. We conclude that the simultaneous and time-shifted presence of different syntax-relevant cues (i.e., hands, mouthings, and non-manuals) makes the sign stream robust against disruption by extraneous visual signals and argue that non-signers attend to some non-manual cues due to their resemblance of communicative gestures.","tags":["sign language","syntax","constituent structure","hierarchy","non-manuals","sign language processing","psycholinguistics"],"title":"Detection of Extraneous Visual Signals Does Not Reveal the Syntactic Structure of German Sign Language (DGS)","type":"publication"},{"authors":["N-K Meister","PC Trettenbrein","TA Finkbeiner","M Steinbach"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1705014000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1705014000,"objectID":"c9a9e69a2327b0c1a818c07fe3521d9a","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/nome-verb-paare-in-der-deutschen-geb%C3%A4rdensprache-dgs/","publishdate":"2024-01-12T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/nome-verb-paare-in-der-deutschen-geb%C3%A4rdensprache-dgs/","section":"talk","summary":"In der modernen Ling\u0026shy;uistik herrscht weitestgehend Einig\u0026shy;keit darüber, dass alle Spra\u0026shy;chen der Welt zu\u0026shy;min\u0026shy;dest über Kate\u0026shy;gorien Anlog zu Nomen und Verben ver\u0026shy;fügen. In\u0026shy;wiefern diese beiden Kate\u0026shy;gorien in unter\u0026shy;schied\u0026shy;lichen Sprachen morpho\u0026shy;logisch markiert werden ist Gegen\u0026shy;stand lau\u0026shy;fen\u0026shy;der For\u0026shy;schung\u0026shy;en. In diesem Vor\u0026shy;trag dis\u0026shy;kutier\u0026shy;en wir die morpho\u0026shy;phono\u0026shy;logische Mar\u0026shy;kier\u0026shy;ung von Nomen und Verben in der Deutschen Gebärden\u0026shy;sprache (DGS) an\u0026shy;hand von Daten einer un\u0026shy;längst durch\u0026shy;ge\u0026shy;führten Elizi\u0026shy;tations\u0026shy;studie mit tauben DGS-Nutzern (N = 9). Die Teil\u0026shy;nehmer sahen dabei Videos (N = 83) von sze\u0026shy;nisch\u0026shy;en Dar\u0026shy;stell\u0026shy;ung\u0026shy;en an, die ent\u0026shy;weder eine nomi\u0026shy;nale oder ver\u0026shy;bale Ver\u0026shy;wend\u0026shy;ung einer Ge\u0026shy;bärde zur Folge haben soll\u0026shy;te, und be\u0026shy;schrieb\u0026shy;en diese dann in DGS. In dieser vo\u0026shy;rläufigen Aus\u0026shy;wertung unserer Daten zeigt sich die Re\u0026shy;le\u0026shy;vanz von Mund\u0026shy;bild und Mund\u0026shy;gestik für die Nomen-Verb-Unterscheidung, so\u0026shy;wie ein offen\u0026shy;bar fließ\u0026shy;enden Über\u0026shy;gang einiger Verb\u0026shy;ge\u0026shy;bärden zu Con\u0026shy;struct\u0026shy;ed Action. Wir dis\u0026shy;ku\u0026shy;tier\u0026shy;en diese Dat\u0026shy;en vor dem Hinter\u0026shy;grund aktu\u0026shy;eller Theo\u0026shy;rien zum Ver\u0026shy;hält\u0026shy;nis des Lexi\u0026shy;kons zu Ge\u0026shy;stik und Con\u0026shy;struct\u0026shy;ed Action, sowie nicht-lexi\u0026shy;kalistisch\u0026shy;en psycho\u0026shy;lingu\u0026shy;istisch\u0026shy;en Mo\u0026shy;dell\u0026shy;en.\nNotice on sign language interpretation: German ⇔ German Sign Language (DGS) interpreting will be provided for this talk.\n","tags":["talk","sign language","science to science","parts of speech","word categories"],"title":"Nomen-Verb-Paare in der Deutschen Gebärdensprache (DGS)","type":"talk"},{"authors":["KK Grohmann","M Kambanaros","E Leivada","B Samuels","PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1703196000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1703196000,"objectID":"7c8f1546d75d1733af7344ea88efd261","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/biolinguistics-end-of-year-notice-2023/","publishdate":"2023-12-22T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/biolinguistics-end-of-year-notice-2023/","section":"publication","summary":"End-of-year notice for *Biolinguistics* in 2023 summarizing the major developments at the journal in this year, outlining some basic statistics about reviewing and publishing, as well as thanking reviewers for their work.","tags":["Biolinguistics","editorial","publishing","open access"],"title":"Biolinguistics end-of-year notice 2023","type":"publication"},{"authors":["CL van der Burght","AD Friederici","M Maran","G Papitto","E Pyatigorskaya","JAM Schroën","PC Trettenbrein","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1701381600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1701381600,"objectID":"4eb8b2dec557c8cb0bf0692875b8a057","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/cleaning-up-the-brickyard-how-theory-and-methodology-shape-experiments-in-cognitive-neuroscience-of-language/","publishdate":"2023-12-01T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/cleaning-up-the-brickyard-how-theory-and-methodology-shape-experiments-in-cognitive-neuroscience-of-language/","section":"publication","summary":"The capacity for language is a defining property of our species, yet despite decades of research evidence on its neural basis is still mixed and a generalized consensus is difficult to achieve. We suggest that this is partly caused by researchers defining “language” in different ways, with focus on a wide range of phenomena, properties, and levels of investigation. Accordingly, there is very little agreement amongst cognitive neuroscientists of language on the operationalization of fundamental concepts to be investigated in neuroscientific experiments. Here, we review chains of derivation in the cognitive neuroscience of language, focusing on how the hypothesis under consideration is defined by a combination of theoretical and methodological assumptions. We first attempt to disentangle the complex relationship between linguistics, psychology, and neuroscience in the field. Next, we focus on how conclusions that can be drawn from any experiment are inherently constrained by auxiliary assumptions, both theoretical and methodological, on which the validity of conclusions drawn rests. These issues are discussed in the context of classical experimental manipulations as well as study designs that employ novel approaches such as naturalistic stimuli and computational modelling. We conclude by proposing that a highly interdisciplinary field such as the cognitive neuroscience of language requires researchers to form explicit statements concerning the theoretical definitions, methodological choices, and other constraining factors involved in their work.","tags":["linguistics","neuroscience","language","psycholinguistics","linguistics theory","meta science","derivation chains","auxiliary assumptions"],"title":"Cleaning up the brickyard: How theory and methodology shape experiments in cognitive neuroscience of language","type":"publication"},{"authors":["TA Finkbeiner","N-K Meister","M Steinbach","PC Trettenbrein","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1699052400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1699052400,"objectID":"1ada1944b1f70af48bafe02319fde306","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/project-update-parts-of-speech-and-iconicity-in-german-sign-language/","publishdate":"2023-11-04T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/project-update-parts-of-speech-and-iconicity-in-german-sign-language/","section":"talk","summary":"In this talk we will provide an update about the work carried out as part of our project since its official start earlier this year. We will report some preliminary results from our first empirical studies, discuss new collaborations that already have emerged within the ViCom Priority Programme, and sketch our next steps and ideas for our next experiments.\nEnglish ⇔ German Sign Language (DGS) interpreting will be provided for this talk.\n","tags":["sign language","science to science","project presentation"],"title":"Project update: Parts of speech and iconicity in German Sign Language (DGS)","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1695337200,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1695337200,"objectID":"db3798c1c46e0a879e8adc9fd3c95e27","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/what-could-a-collaborative-dgs-lex-look-like/","publishdate":"2023-09-22T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/what-could-a-collaborative-dgs-lex-look-like/","section":"talk","summary":"In this short impulse talk, I will explore what a collaboratively created ‘DGS-LEX’ could look like and how we could get to the point of having such a resource for German Sign Language (DGS)---which is currently still missing---publicly available to the scientific community. The major points I will consider are the possible technical as well as especially the organisational challenges that such a project is likely to face along the way. These will be discussed against the background of a brief consideration of similar projects for other sign languages (e.g., [ASL-LEX](https://asl-lex.org)) but also other research areas (e.g., [Wordbank](http://wordbank.stanford.edu)). Notice on sign language interpretation: I will be presenting in spoken English, but English ⇔ German Sign Language (DGS) interpreting will be available.\n","tags":["talk","open science","data sharing","cognitive neuroscience","sign language"],"title":"What could a collaborative “DGS-LEX” look like?","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","E Zaccarella","AD Friederici"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1689372000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1689372000,"objectID":"8307659e2762ad830e8b170cef6320af","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/functional-and-structural-asymmetries-in-sign-language-processing/","publishdate":"2023-07-15T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/functional-and-structural-asymmetries-in-sign-language-processing/","section":"publication","summary":"The capacity for language constitutes a cornerstone of human cognition and distinguishes our species from other animals. Research in the cognitive sciences has demonstrated that this capacity is not bound to speech but can also be externalized in the form of sign language. Sign languages are the naturally occurring languages of the deaf and rely on movements and configurations of hands, arms, face, and torso in space. This chapter reviews the functional and structural organisation of the neural substrates of sign language as identified by neuroimaging research over the past decades. Most aspects of sign language processing in adult deaf signers markedly mirror the well-known functional left-lateralization of spoken and written language. However, both hemispheres exhibit a certain equipotentiality for processing linguistic information and the right hemisphere seems to specifically support processing of some constructions unique to the signed modality. Crucially, the so-called “core language network” in the left hemisphere constitutes a functional and structural asymmetry in typically developed deaf and hearing populations alike: This network is (i) pivotal for processing complex syntax independent of the modality of language use, (ii) matures in accordance with a genetically determined biological matrix, and (iii) may have constituted an evolutionary prerequisite for the emergence of the human capacity for language.","tags":["sign language","neurobiology of language","language network","lateralization","sign language processing","modality of language use","modality-independence"],"title":"Functional and structural brain asymmetries in sign language processing","type":"publication"},{"authors":["A Gregori","F Amici","I Brilmayer","A Ćwiek","L Fritzsche","S Fuchs","A Henlein","O Herbort","F Kügler","J Lemanski","K Liebal","A Lücking","A Mehler","KT Nguyen","W Pouw","P Prieto","PL Rohrer","PG Sánchez-Ramón","M Schulte-Rüther","PB Schumacher","SR Schweinberger","V Struckmeier","PC Trettenbrein","CI von Eiff"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1688853600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1688853600,"objectID":"b31fa37c98c7e6c4d6f0188b3c1845be","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/a-roadmap-for-technological-innovation-in-multimodal-communication-research/","publishdate":"2023-07-09T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/a-roadmap-for-technological-innovation-in-multimodal-communication-research/","section":"publication","summary":"Multimodal communication research focuses on how different means of signalling coordinate to communicate effectively. This line of research is traditionally influenced by fields such as cognitive and neuroscience, human-computer interaction, and linguistics. With new technologies becoming available in fields such as natural language processing and computer vision, the field can increasingly avail itself of new ways of analyzing and understanding multimodal communication. As a result, there is a general hope that multimodal research may be at the “precipice of greatness” due to technological advances in computer science and resulting extended empirical coverage. However, for this to come about there must be sufficient guidance on key (theoretical) needs of innovation in the field of multimodal communication. Absent such guidance, the research focus of computer scientists might increasingly diverge from crucial issues in multimodal communication. With this paper, we want to further promote interaction between these fields, which may enormously benefit both communities. The multimodal research community (represented here by a consortium of researchers from the Visual Communication [ViCom] Priority Programme) can engage in the innovation by clearly stating which technological tools are needed to make progress in the field of multimodal communication. In this article, we try to facilitate the establishment of a much needed common ground on feasible expectations (e.g., in terms of terminology and measures to be able to train machine learning algorithms) and to critically reflect possibly idle hopes for technical advances, informed by recent successes and challenges in computer science, social signal processing, and related domains.","tags":["linguistics","language","multimodal communication","neuroscience","natural language processing","technical innovation"],"title":"A roadmap for technological innovation in multimodal communication research","type":"publication"},{"authors":["E Zaccarella, G Papitto, PC Trettenbrein, AD Friederici"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1687730400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1687730400,"objectID":"f180c7fd70be312a42b8ce9ae85505c1","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/sprache-und-handlung-sind-zweierlei/","publishdate":"2023-06-26T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/sprache-und-handlung-sind-zweierlei/","section":"publication","summary":"Von der Kindheit bis zum Erwachsenenalter wächst unser aktiver Wortschatz stetig auf etwa 20.000 Wörter, die wir nach bestimmten Regeln zu unendlich vielen sprachlichen Ausdrücken verknüpfen. Da Sätze oberflächlich betrachtet eine Aneinanderreihung von Wörtern sind, ähnlich der Abfolge motorischer Handlungen, wurde vermutet, dass die Verarbeitung von Sprache und Handlungen eine gemeinsame kognitive Grundlage in Form überlappender neuronaler Ressourcen hat. Unsere Arbeit stellt diese Parallelität sowohl auf formaler als auch auf neuroanatomischer Ebene in Frage und zeigt stattdessen die Unabhängigkeit von Sprach- und Handlungsverarbeitung auf.","tags":["linguistics","neuroscience","language","action","sign language","science to public"],"title":"Sprache und Handlung sind zweierlei","type":"publication"},{"authors":["CL van der Burght","AD Friederici","M Maran","G Papitto","E Pyatigorskaya","JAM Schroën","PC Trettenbrein","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1687215600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1687215600,"objectID":"fa98e6825000a56c79bac1fed45fa6e4","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/cleaning-up-the-brickyard-how-theory-and-methodology-shape-experiments-in-cognitive-neuroscience-of-language/","publishdate":"2023-06-20T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/cleaning-up-the-brickyard-how-theory-and-methodology-shape-experiments-in-cognitive-neuroscience-of-language/","section":"talk","summary":"The capacity for language is a defining property of our species, yet despite decades of research evidence on its neural basis is still mixed and a generalized consensus is difficult to achieve. We suggest that this is partly caused by researchers defining “language” in different ways, with focus on a wide range of phenomena, properties, and levels of investigation. Accordingly, there is very little agreement amongst cognitive neuroscientists of language on the operationalization of fundamental concepts to be investigated in neuroscientific experiments. Here, we review chains of derivation in the cognitive neuroscience of language, focusing on how the hypothesis under consideration is defined by a combination of theoretical and methodological assumptions. We first attempt to disentangle the complex relationship between linguistics, psychology, and neuroscience in the field. Next, we focus on how conclusions that can be drawn from any experiment are inherently constrained by auxiliary assumptions, both theoretical and methodological, on which the validity of conclusions drawn rests. These issues are discussed in the context of classical experimental manipulations as well as study designs that employ novel approaches such as naturalistic stimuli and computational modelling. We conclude by proposing that a highly interdisciplinary field such as the cognitive neuroscience of language requires researchers to form explicit statements concerning the theoretical definitions, methodological choices, and other constraining factors involved in their work.","tags":["linguistics","neuroscience","language","psycholinguistics","linguistics theory","meta science","derivation chains","auxiliary assumptions"],"title":"Cleaning up the brickyard: How theory and methodology shape experiments in cognitive neuroscience of language","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":" Press coverage (selection):  German: \u0026ldquo;Rektaluntersuchung eines Pferdes – und weitere Angebote der Langen Wissenschaftsnacht\u0026rdquo; in Leipziger Volkszeitung  ","date":1685574000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1685574000,"objectID":"30e6ed4a95e8fd4ce8e618ee11512809","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/grundlagen-von-gebaerdensprache-im-gehirn/","publishdate":"2023-06-01T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/grundlagen-von-gebaerdensprache-im-gehirn/","section":"talk","summary":"Was sind die Grundlagen der Gebärdensprache im Gehirn? Wie unterscheiden sich Gebärden- und Lautsprache in der Verarbeitung im Gehirn? Wir stellen uns gemeinsam diese und weitere Fragen und stellen dabei auch unsere Forschung zur Gebärdensprache in Leipzig kurz vor.\nThis talk will be interpreted! I will be presenting in spoken German but German ⇔ DGS interpreting will be available.\n","tags":["Wissenschaftskommunikation","science to public"],"title":"Grundlagen von Gebärdensprache im Gehirn","type":"talk"},{"authors":["TA Finkbeiner","N-K Meister","M Steinbach","PC Trettenbrein","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":" Summary in German Sign Language (DGS):  \n","date":1685055600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1685055600,"objectID":"c8d008dcdc808dc73d3fd97354cab351","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/wortarten-und-ikonizit%C3%A4t-in-der-deutschen-geb%C3%A4rdensprache-dgs-/","publishdate":"2023-05-26T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/wortarten-und-ikonizit%C3%A4t-in-der-deutschen-geb%C3%A4rdensprache-dgs-/","section":"talk","summary":"In diesem Vor\u0026shy;trag werden wir das von der Deutschen Forschungs\u0026shy;gemein\u0026shy;schaft (DFG) im Rahmen des Schwer\u0026shy;punkt\u0026shy;programms „Visu\u0026shy;elle Kommu\u0026shy;nikation“ (ViCom) geförderte Projekt „Wort\u0026shy;arten und Ikonizität in der Deutschen Gebärden\u0026shy;sprache“ vor\u0026shy;stellen. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf dem theo\u0026shy;retischen Hinter\u0026shy;grund und metho\u0026shy;dologischen Grund\u0026shy;lagen unserer ge\u0026shy;planten Ar\u0026shy;beit, welche die Unter\u0026shy;scheidung von Rede\u0026shy;teilen in der Deutschen Gebärden\u0026shy;sprache (DGS) bei der Sprach\u0026shy;produktion sowie bei der Ver\u0026shy;arbeitung von einzelnen Gebärden sowie im Kontext von ganzen Sätzen mit ver\u0026shy;schied\u0026shy;enen lingu\u0026shy;istischen und neuro\u0026shy;wissen\u0026shy;schaft\u0026shy;lichen Me\u0026shy;thoden unter\u0026shy;suchen wird.\nThis talk will be bilingual! We will be co-presenting in spoken German and in German Sign Language (DGS). German ⇔ DGS interpreting will be available.\n","tags":["talk","sign language","science to science","project presentation"],"title":"Wortarten und Ikonizität in der Deutschen Gebärdensprache (DGS)","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","AD Friederici"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1682287200,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1682287200,"objectID":"b82606c412abd0f6be70ee02d3c4e860","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/functional-and-structural-brain-asymmetries-in-language-processing/","publishdate":"2023-04-24T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/functional-and-structural-brain-asymmetries-in-language-processing/","section":"publication","summary":"The lateralization of language to the left hemisphere of the human brain constitutes one of the classic examples of asymmetry in biology. At the same time, it is also commonly understood that damage to the left hemisphere does not lead to a complete loss of all linguistic abilities. These seemingly contradictory findings indicate that that neither our cognitive capacity for language nor its neural substrates are monolithic. This chapter reviews the functional and structural lateralization of the neural substrates of different aspects of language as revealed in the past decades by neuroimaging research. Most aspects of language processing indeed tend to be functionally lateralized to the left hemisphere in the adult human brain. Nevertheless, both hemispheres exhibit a certain equipotentiality with regard to some aspects of language processing, especially with regard to processing meaning and sound. In contrast, the so-called “core language network” in the left hemisphere constitutes a functional and structural asymmetry: This network (i) is crucial for a core aspect of language processing, namely syntax, which refers to the generation of hierarchically structured representations of utterances linking meaning and sound, (ii) matures in accordance with a genetically determined biological matrix, and (iii) its emergence may have constituted a prerequisite for the evolution of the human language capacity.","tags":["neuroscience","syntax","language processing","language development","evolution of language","neurobiology of language","language network","lateralization","sentence processing","brain development","neurolinguistics"],"title":"Functional and structural brain asymmetries in language processing","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1672527600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1672527600,"objectID":"18c6eebb55080eff61d57a93a9dea385","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/einf%C3%BChrung-in-neurowissenschaftliche-methoden-in-der-geb%C3%A4rdensprachforschung/","publishdate":"2023-01-01T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/einf%C3%BChrung-in-neurowissenschaftliche-methoden-in-der-geb%C3%A4rdensprachforschung/","section":"talk","summary":"Die mensch\u0026shy;liche Sprach\u0026shy;fähigkeit in ihren unter\u0026shy;schiedlichen Facetten kann aus verschiedenen Blick\u0026shy;winkeln und mit einer Viel\u0026shy;zahl von Forschungs\u0026shy;methoden unter\u0026shy;sucht werden. In diesen Vor\u0026shy;trag widmen wir uns der Unter\u0026shy;suchung der neuro\u0026shy;nalen Grund\u0026shy;lagen von Gebärden\u0026shy;sprache im Ge\u0026shy;hirn mit Hilfe von unter\u0026shy;schiedlichen neuro\u0026shy;wissen\u0026shy;schaft\u0026shy;lichen Me\u0026shy;thoden mit einem Schwer\u0026shy;punkt auf der Elektro\u0026shy;enzephalo\u0026shy;grafie (EEG) und funktion\u0026shy;eller Magnet\u0026shy;resonanz\u0026shy;tomografie (MRT). Nach einer kurzen all\u0026shy;gemeinen Ein\u0026shy;führung in die ver\u0026shy;schiedenen Me\u0026shy;thoden und ihre Funktions\u0026shy;weise be\u0026shy;sprechen wir kon\u0026shy;krete Bei\u0026shy;spiele aus der For\u0026shy;schung im Göttinger Labor im Hin\u0026shy;blick auf die jeweilige Forschungs\u0026shy;frage, experi\u0026shy;mentelle Oper\u0026shy;ationali\u0026shy;sierung, Er\u0026shy;gebnisse, sowie deren Inter\u0026shy;pretation.","tags":["teaching","sign language","neuroscience","research methods"],"title":"Einführung in neurowissenschaftliche Methoden in der Gebärdensprachforschung","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1672527600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1672527600,"objectID":"3aa942ee0d673dcb471f58012b86ddc6","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/neural-basis-of-sign-language/","publishdate":"2023-01-01T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/neural-basis-of-sign-language/","section":"talk","summary":"One of the major insights of modern linguistics has been that the human capacity for language is not bound to speech but may also be externalized and perceived in the visuo-spatial modality of sign language. Linguistic analysis has demonstrated that despite the differences between modalities signed and spoken language exhibit deep similarities. In this lecture, we will start out by reviewing the basics of sign language linguistics, before moving to a discussion of major psycho- and neurolinguistic studies of sign language over the past decades. We will see that the available neuroimaging evidence indicates that signed, spoken and, written language is processed in a partially overlapping primarily left-hemispheric fronto-temporal network. However, sign language processing also recruits brain regions beyond the canonical language network. Against this background, we will argue that the human brain has evolved a so-called \"core language network\" which processes linguistic information independent of modality and flexibly interacts with non-linguistic and modality-specific networks during language processing, depending on the modality of language use.","tags":["teaching","sign language","neurobiology","sign language processing"],"title":"Neurobiological basis of sign language","type":"talk"},{"authors":["KK Grohmann","M Kambanaros","E Leivada","B Samuels","PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1671573600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1671573600,"objectID":"50d66998c30a9db26535ba577ed010f0","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/biolinguistics-end-of-year-notice-2022/","publishdate":"2022-12-21T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/biolinguistics-end-of-year-notice-2022/","section":"publication","summary":"End-of-year notice for Biolinguistics in 2022 summarizing the major developments at the journal in this year, outlining some basic statistics about reviewing and publishing, as well as thanking reviewers for their work.","tags":["Biolinguistics","editorial","publishing","open access"],"title":"Biolinguistics end-of-year notice 2022","type":"publication"},{"authors":["TA Finkbeiner","N-K Meister","M Steinbach","PC Trettenbrein","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":" Summary in German Sign Language (DGS):  \n","date":1668553200,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1668553200,"objectID":"7700883e60c3cd006b1cfb9741966ad6","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/parts-of-speech-and-iconicity-in-german-sign-language/","publishdate":"2022-11-16T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/parts-of-speech-and-iconicity-in-german-sign-language/","section":"talk","summary":"Linguistic typology in the past decades has questioned whether parts of speech such as nouns and verbs are universal across different languages (e.g., Haspelmath, 2001; Evans \u0026 Levinson, 2009). Similarly, there is an ongoing debate in theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics as to whether (major) categories such as noun and verb (i) constitute lexical primitives, (ii) result from a combinatorial syntactic process, or (iii) emerge only in the context of language use (Halle \u0026 Marantz, 1993; Vigliocco et al., 2011). Our project starts from the observation that word class universals like noun and verb are not always clearly distinguished in sign language. Here we take German Sign Language (DGS) as an empirical testing ground. Similar to spoken languages, e.g., English (the book vs. to book), many signs in DGS seem to be ambiguous insofar as their lexical status depends on the (syntactic) context in which they are produced. Preliminary studies on sign languages, however, have observed that sign languages exhibit a tendency to mark nouns and verbs by manual and probably also by nonmanual phonological modifications of the root (e.g., Supalla \u0026 Newport, 1978).\nOur project investigates the distinction between major word classes in DGS using different linguistic and neuroscientific methods focusing on language production as well as single sign and sentence processing. Furthermore, within the analysis of the overt realisation of the noun-verb-distinction in DGS, we investigate the linguistic and cognitive relevance of parts of speech and the impact of iconicity on sign languages. Our aim is therefore threefold: (i) We want to test the supposed universality of the noun-verb-distinction, by going beyond previous work done on spoken languages. We will explore differences in the distribution of the two lexical categories in DGS, a language in the visuo-spatial modality, using linguistic, behavioral, and neuroscientific experiments. (ii) We want to provide insights into the iconic properties of DGS and how these are perceived by deaf and hearing people, thereby identifying tendencies that are not necessarily linguistic but could – due to their iconic nature – be grounded in non-linguistic cognition. This will be explored using qualitative as well as data-driven approaches that will investigate iconic properties and motivations of signs in DGS and how iconicity is linked to the overt realisation of the noun-verb-distinction. (iii) We want to match the empirical findings of our studies with recent formal and functional analyses of parts of speech as lexical or syntactic categories thereby contributing to a better theoretical understanding of parts of speech and the impact of modality on parts of speech.\nThis talk will be bilingual! We will be co-presenting in spoken English and in International Sign (IS). English ⇔ IS interpreting will be available.\n","tags":["sign language","science to science","project presentation"],"title":"Parts of speech and iconicity in German Sign Language (DGS)","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1665442800,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1665442800,"objectID":"1013c817ad145ce34a7f55bfca5ca819","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/language-as-a-window-into-the-mind-brain/","publishdate":"2022-10-11T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/language-as-a-window-into-the-mind-brain/","section":"talk","summary":"The capacity for language serves as a cornerstone of human cognition. In this short introductory talk, we will first jointly explore why studying language is elementary for our understanding of the (human) mind/brain. Against this background, we will then review and discuss a selection of past and present studies carried out at the Department of Neuropsychology at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig which have embraced this notion of language as a window into the workings of the mind/brain.","tags":["Wissenschaftskommunikation","science to public"],"title":"Language as a window into the mind/brain","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1657839600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1657839600,"objectID":"3a54f67d5642a971834d4672654126f1","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/how-supramodal-is-the-language-network-the-view-from-sign-language/","publishdate":"2022-07-15T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/how-supramodal-is-the-language-network-the-view-from-sign-language/","section":"talk","summary":"One of the major insights of modern linguistics has been that the human capacity for language is not bound to speech but may also be externalized and perceived in the visuo-spatial modality of sign language. Neuroimaging evidence indicates that signed, spoken and, written language is processed in a partially overlapping primarily left-hemispheric fronto-temporal network ([Trettenbrein et al., 2021, *Human Brain Mapping*](/publication/functional-neuroanatomy-of-language-without-speech)). Against this background, this talk will review to what extent and on what grounds anatomical and functional components of the language network can or should reasonably be considered supramodal.","tags":["sign language","neurobiology","language network","language modality"],"title":"How supramodal is the language network? The view from sign language","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1657148400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1657148400,"objectID":"75d524c4c6b56cfe2b89f2a18e32b9ae","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/neuroimaging-data-in-the-vicom-open-science-data-network/","publishdate":"2022-07-07T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/neuroimaging-data-in-the-vicom-open-science-data-network/","section":"talk","summary":"In this short impulse talk, I'll discuss existing solutions for data organisation, storage, and publication such as the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) and the Open Science Framework (OSF) and how they may be utilized in the context of ViCom. Special attention will be paid the anonymization of data in the context of neuroimaging and beyond.","tags":["talk","open science","data sharing","cognitive neuroscience","sign language"],"title":"Neuroimaging data in the “ViCom” Open Science Data Network","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","M Maran","J Pohl","T Finkbeiner","AD Friederici","M Steinbach","E Zaccarella","N-K Pendzich"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1656370800,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1656370800,"objectID":"0713fa26b7f404c800c0d234bfcf6887","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/can-detection-of-extraneous-visual-signals-reveal-the-syntactic-structure-of-sign-language-tislr/","publishdate":"2022-06-28T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/can-detection-of-extraneous-visual-signals-reveal-the-syntactic-structure-of-sign-language-tislr/","section":"talk","summary":"Background\nThe ability to combine individual lexical items into phrases and sentences is at the core of the human capacity for language (Friederici et al., 2017). Linguistic research indicates that the world’s sign languages exhibit complex hierarchical organisation of utterances just like spoken languages (e.g., Cecchetto, 2017), but the role of hierarchical organisation during online sign language processing is poorly understood. The present study constitutes the first adaptation of the classical psycholinguistic “click” paradigm (e.g., Holmes \u0026 Forster, 1970) from the auditory-oral to the visuo-spatial modality. Using short flashes inserted into videos of signed sentences as analogues to auditory clicks, we seek to determine whether deaf signers, like hearing speakers, automatically attribute constituent structure onto sequences of signs during language comprehension.\nMethods\nThe paradigm is implemented as an automated reaction-time experiment which can comfortably be run by deaf participants from home via their web browser. Instructions are given in German Sign Language (DGS) in the form of pre-recorded videos. In the experiment, participants watch different types of complex DGS sentences such as (1). (1) IF POSS1 SISTER WITH POSS3 CHILD++ TOMORROW MORNING 3VISIT1 / IX1 HAVE-TO HOUSE CLEAN\nDuring the presentation of sentences, a white flash (duration: 80 ms) may occur as an overlay to the stimulus clip at different positions in the sentence and participants have to respond to this cue as fast as possible via button press. After every trial, participants have to answer a binary comprehension question (Figure 1). The flash can occur in the first or second half of the sentence. Importantly, the exact point in time when the flash occurs differs with regard to the syntactic structure of a sentence, so that a flash may occur either after a major break in the constituent structure separating two clauses as indicated by “/” in (1), after a minor break, or not at a break. This yields a 2x3 within-subject design with the factors Position (first vs. second half) and Structure (major vs. minor vs. no break). In addition to the six experimental conditions, filler trials (22 %) in which no flash occurs were also included. The stimuli were designed and recorded with a deaf native signer. All clips were annotated using ELAN (Lausberg \u0026 Sloeties, 2009) and flashes were inserted using an automated video-editing procedure. In addition, we performed automated motion-tracking on the stimuli using OpenPose (Cao et al., 2019) and extracted motion information using OpenPoseR (Trettenbrein \u0026 Zaccarella, 2021) to control our stimuli for a possible correlation between articulatory pauses and the probed constituent structure.\nDiscussion\nAt the time of writing, data collection is still ongoing which is why we will limit our discussion here to the effects we expect to observe. Assuming that the placement of flashes at different positions in the constituent structure of sentences will impact the time that participants take to respond, we expect to observe a main effect of Structure. In particular, faster RTs are expected for detecting a flash at a major (no constituent interrupted) and minor (small number of constituents interrupted) boundaries, compared to the no boundary condition (large number of constituents interrupted). This would provide first psycholinguistic evidence for the relevance of constituent structure during sign language comprehension, expanding previous findings for spoken language. We do not expect to observe a main effect of Position, due to the inclusion of filler trials without any flashes which should counteract the increased probability of requiring a response towards the second half of the sentence, which was inherent to the design of earlier auditory studies (Holmes \u0026 Forster, 1970). In sum, the expected effect of Structure would provide evidence for the modality-independence of the cognitive mechanisms underlying syntactic processing.\n\nFigure 1: Example of an experimental trial in which the sentence given in (1) is presented and a flash occurs after the sign VISIT at the major break separating the two clauses. Every trial is followed by a comprehension question.\nReferences\nCao, Z., Hidalgo, G., Simon, T., Wei, S.-E., \u0026 Sheikh, Y. (2019). OpenPose: Realtime multi-person 2D pose estimation using part affinity fields. ArXiv:1812.08008 [Cs]. http://arxiv.org/abs/1812.08008\nCecchetto, C. (2017). The syntax of sign language and Universal Grammar. In I. Roberts (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of Universal Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\nFriederici, A. D., Chomsky, N., Berwick, R. C., Moro, A., \u0026 Bolhuis, J. J. (2017). Language, mind and brain. Nature Human Behaviour. 1, 713–722. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0184-4 Holmes, V. M., \u0026 Forster, K. I. (1970). Detection of extraneous signals during sentence recognition. Perception \u0026 Psychophysics, 7(5), 297–301.\nLausberg, H., \u0026 Sloetjes, H. (2009). Coding gestural behavior with the NEUROGES-ELAN system. Behavior Research Methods, 41(3), 841–849. Trettenbrein, P. C., \u0026 Zaccarella, E. (2021). Controlling video stimuli in sign language and gesture research: The OpenPoseR package for analyzing OpenPose motion-tracking data in R. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 628728. https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.628728\n","tags":["poster presentation","sign language","syntax","constituent structure","psycholinguistics"],"title":"Can detection of extraneous visual signals reveal the syntactic structure of sign language?","type":"talk"},{"authors":["E Zaccarella","PC Trettenbrein","AD Friederici"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1656370800,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1656370800,"objectID":"9b43c196208e87db4d1b8d662a747e76","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/neurobiology-of-spoken-written-and-sign-language-processing/","publishdate":"2022-06-28T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/neurobiology-of-spoken-written-and-sign-language-processing/","section":"talk","summary":"The human capacity for language is best described as a biologically determined computational mechanism yielding an unbounded array of hierarchically structured expressions and should not be conflated with notions of “speech” or “communication”. The neurobiological basis of this cognitive mechanism has been localized primarily to left inferior frontal and posterior temporal cortices in the left hemisphere. This functional and structural network subserves the dynamic interaction of semantic and syntactic aspects during spoken, written, and sign language processing. In addition, other left perisylvian, right-hemispheric, as well as sub-cortical regions have also been implicated in different aspects of language processing. Against this background, we will argue that the brain regions involved in language processing can conceptually be segregated into a “core” and an “extended” language network: The former is assumed to be specialized for processing linguistic information, whereas the latter may also be recruited by other cognitive functions.","tags":["talk","language processing","neurobiology","sign language","spoken language","written language"],"title":"Neurobiology of spoken, written, and sign language processing","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1654556400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1654556400,"objectID":"76a84d2e48e4662154216c9f2e4b5d6e","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/what-is-language-and-why-does-it-matter/","publishdate":"2022-06-07T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/what-is-language-and-why-does-it-matter/","section":"talk","summary":"In this two-hour workshop, we will jointly ask, explore, and attempt to answer the question \"What is language?\" To provide participants with the intellectual tools for formulating possible answers, we will start off in the first part by reviewing some basic insights of modern linguistics--the scientific study of language. Next, we will consider the various sub-fields where linguistics intersects with other academic disciplines ranging from sociology, to neuroscience, computer science, and philosophy. In the second part, we will then take a closer look at the intersection of linguistics with biology by discussing how cognitive scientists tend to define language and reviewing work on the neurobiological basis of the human capacity for language which has embraced this definition. Special attention will be paid to the fundamentally abstract nature of the human language faculty, as well as to the study and neurobiology of sign language. Against this background, we will end by jointly discussing the potential general relevance of such basic research and how it can inform an evolutionary perspective on language and our species.","tags":["Wissenschaftskommunikation","science to public"],"title":"What is “language”?—And why does it matter?","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","M Maran","N-K Pendzich","J Pohl","T Finkbeiner","AD Friederici","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1642287600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1642287600,"objectID":"3ae92f93ab1328e75c735eb9c8e5765d","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/can-detection-of-extraneous-visual-signals-reveal-the-syntactic-structure-of-sign-language/","publishdate":"2022-01-16T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/can-detection-of-extraneous-visual-signals-reveal-the-syntactic-structure-of-sign-language/","section":"talk","summary":"Background\nThe ability to combine individual lexical items into phrases and sentences is at the core of the human capacity for language (Friederici et al., 2017). Linguistic research indicates that the world’s sign languages exhibit complex hierarchical organisation of utterances just like spoken languages (e.g., Cecchetto, 2017), but the role of hierarchical organisation during online sign language processing is poorly understood. The present study constitutes the first adaptation of the classical psycholinguistic “click” paradigm (e.g., Holmes \u0026 Forster, 1970) from the auditory-oral to the visuo-spatial modality. Using short flashes inserted into videos of signed sentences as analogues to auditory clicks, we seek to determine whether deaf signers, like hearing speakers, automatically attribute constituent structure onto sequences of signs during language comprehension.\nMethods\nThe paradigm is implemented as an automated reaction-time experiment which can comfortably be run by deaf participants from home via their web browser. Instructions are given in German Sign Language (DGS) in the form of pre-recorded videos. In the experiment, participants watch different types of complex DGS sentences such as (1). (1) IF POSS1 SISTER WITH POSS3 CHILD++ TOMORROW MORNING 3VISIT1 / IX1 HAVE-TO HOUSE CLEAN\nDuring the presentation of sentences, a white flash (duration: 80 ms) may occur as an overlay to the stimulus clip at different positions in the sentence and participants have to respond to this cue as fast as possible via button press. After every trial, participants have to answer a binary comprehension question (Figure 1). The flash can occur in the first or second half of the sentence. Importantly, the exact point in time when the flash occurs differs with regard to the syntactic structure of a sentence, so that a flash may occur either after a major break in the constituent structure separating two clauses as indicated by “/” in (1), after a minor break, or not at a break. This yields a 2x3 within-subject design with the factors Position (first vs. second half) and Structure (major vs. minor vs. no break). In addition to the six experimental conditions, filler trials (22 %) in which no flash occurs were also included. The stimuli were designed and recorded with a deaf native signer. All clips were annotated using ELAN (Lausberg \u0026 Sloeties, 2009) and flashes were inserted using an automated video-editing procedure. In addition, we performed automated motion-tracking on the stimuli using OpenPose (Cao et al., 2019) and extracted motion information using OpenPoseR (Trettenbrein \u0026 Zaccarella, 2021) to control our stimuli for a possible correlation between articulatory pauses and the probed constituent structure.\nDiscussion\nAt the time of writing, data collection is still ongoing which is why we will limit our discussion here to the effects we expect to observe. Assuming that the placement of flashes at different positions in the constituent structure of sentences will impact the time that participants take to respond, we expect to observe a main effect of Structure. In particular, faster RTs are expected for detecting a flash at a major (no constituent interrupted) and minor (small number of constituents interrupted) boundaries, compared to the no boundary condition (large number of constituents interrupted). This would provide first psycholinguistic evidence for the relevance of constituent structure during sign language comprehension, expanding previous findings for spoken language. We do not expect to observe a main effect of Position, due to the inclusion of filler trials without any flashes which should counteract the increased probability of requiring a response towards the second half of the sentence, which was inherent to the design of earlier auditory studies (Holmes \u0026 Forster, 1970). In sum, the expected effect of Structure would provide evidence for the modality-independence of the cognitive mechanisms underlying syntactic processing.\n\nFigure 1: Example of an experimental trial in which the sentence given in (1) is presented and a flash occurs after the sign VISIT at the major break separating the two clauses. Every trial is followed by a comprehension question.\nReferences\nCao, Z., Hidalgo, G., Simon, T., Wei, S.-E., \u0026 Sheikh, Y. (2019). OpenPose: Realtime multi-person 2D pose estimation using part affinity fields. ArXiv:1812.08008 [Cs]. http://arxiv.org/abs/1812.08008\nCecchetto, C. (2017). The syntax of sign language and Universal Grammar. In I. Roberts (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of Universal Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\nFriederici, A. D., Chomsky, N., Berwick, R. C., Moro, A., \u0026 Bolhuis, J. J. (2017). Language, mind and brain. Nature Human Behaviour. 1, 713–722. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0184-4 Holmes, V. M., \u0026 Forster, K. I. (1970). Detection of extraneous signals during sentence recognition. Perception \u0026 Psychophysics, 7(5), 297–301.\nLausberg, H., \u0026 Sloetjes, H. (2009). Coding gestural behavior with the NEUROGES-ELAN system. Behavior Research Methods, 41(3), 841–849. Trettenbrein, P. C., \u0026 Zaccarella, E. (2021). Controlling video stimuli in sign language and gesture research: The OpenPoseR package for analyzing OpenPose motion-tracking data in R. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 628728. https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.628728\nThis talk will be bilingual! We will be co-presenting in spoken English and in International Sign (IS). English ⇔ IS interpreting will be available.\n","tags":["talk","sign language","syntax","constituent structure","psycholinguistics"],"title":"Can detection of extraneous visual signals reveal the syntactic structure of sign language?","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein, E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1641506400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1641506400,"objectID":"013d39dc4c308c1dc141499cd672a1bc","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/sprache-ist-mehr-als-sprechen/","publishdate":"2022-01-07T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/sprache-ist-mehr-als-sprechen/","section":"publication","summary":"So unterschiedlich die mehr als 7000 Sprachen der Welt auf den ersten Blick erscheinen, so sehr vereint sie eines: Alle folgen grammatikalischen Regeln, die Wörter zu Sätzen zusammensetzen. Egal, ob gesprochen, geschrieben oder gebärdet wird. Woher kommt diese Vielfalt an Sprachen? Und warum ist unsere Sprachfähigkeit nicht an eine bestimme Form gebunden? Eine kognitions\u0026shy;wissenschaftliche Betrachtung.","tags":["linguistics","neuroscience","language and brain","biology of language","science to public","sign language","development","evolution"],"title":"Sprache ist mehr als Sprechen: Eine kognitionswissenschaftliche Betrachtung","type":"publication"},{"authors":null,"categories":null,"content":"This private web site is supposed to showcase my research and scholarly work. The content and opinions expressed on these page are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.\nThe page was created using the Academic theme for Hugo and is hosted for free on Github.\nAs I am currently based in Leipzig, I provide the information below in accordance with German law.\nBetreiber sowie Verantwortlicher nach § 18 Abs. 2 MStV:\nPatrick C. Trettenbrein\nStephanstraße 1a\n04103 Leipzig\nGERMANY  Contact\n","date":1632182400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1632182400,"objectID":"835eca812bd819211ed02d56f063d4c7","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/notice/","publishdate":"2021-09-21T00:00:00Z","relpermalink":"/notice/","section":"","summary":"Legal information about this web site.","tags":null,"title":"Legal notice","type":"page"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"Una entrevista con Noam Chomsky, cofundador del campo de la biolingüística, contemporáneo y amigo de Eric Lenneberg, en la que habla de los inicios del campo, de su trabajo y relación con Lenneberg, y de una serie de cuestiones y temas científicos que (todavía) nos cautivan 50 años después.\n(Spanish translation of an interview with Noam Chomsky that originally appeared in Biolinguistics as \u0026ldquo;50 years later: A conversation about the biological study of language with Noam Chomsky\u0026rdquo;.)\n","date":1627596000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1627596000,"objectID":"06fc7bc4cc8b2826646b25e8b4b8f4a5","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/sobre-el-estudio-biologico-del-lenguaje-50-anos-despues/","publishdate":"2021-07-30T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/sobre-el-estudio-biologico-del-lenguaje-50-anos-despues/","section":"publication","summary":"Una entrevista con Noam Chomsky, cofundador del campo de la biolingüística, contemporáneo y amigo de Eric Lenneberg, en la que habla de los inicios del campo, de su trabajo y relación con Lenneberg, y de una serie de cuestiones y temas científicos que (todavía) nos cautivan 50 años después.\n(Spanish translation of an interview with Noam Chomsky that originally appeared in Biolinguistics as \u0026ldquo;50 years later: A conversation about the biological study of language with Noam Chomsky\u0026rdquo;.","tags":["biology of language","biolinguistics","interview","Noam Chomsky"],"title":"Sobre el estudio biológico del lenguaje 50 años después. Una conversación con Noam Chomsky","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","N-K Pendzich","J-M Cramer","M Steinbach","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1624834800,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1624834800,"objectID":"59448c85571454951ef8f74cab7b5441","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/psycholinguistic-norms-300-lexical-signs-german-sign-language-dgs/","publishdate":"2021-06-28T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/psycholinguistic-norms-300-lexical-signs-german-sign-language-dgs/","section":"talk","summary":"Sign language offers a unique perspective on the human faculty of language by illustrating that linguistic abilities are not bound to speech and writing. In studies of spoken and written language processing, lexical variables such as, for example, age of acquisition have been found to play an important role, but such information is not as yet available for German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS). Here, we present a set of norms for frequency, age of acquisition, and iconicity for more than 300 lexical DGS signs, derived from subjective ratings by 32 deaf signers. We also provide additional norms for iconicity and transparency for the same set of signs derived from ratings by 30 hearing non-signers. In addition to empirical norming data, the dataset includes machine-readable information about a sign’s correspondence in German and English, as well as annotations of lexico-semantic and phonological properties: one-handed vs. two-handed, place of articulation, most likely lexical class, animacy, verb type, (potential) homonymy, and potential dialectal variation. Finally, we include information about sign onset and offset for all stimulus clips from automated motion-tracking data. All norms, stimulus clips, data, as well as code used for analysis are made available through the Open Science Framework in the hope that they may prove to be useful to other researchers: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/MZ8J4","tags":["poster presentation","sign language","psycholinguistics","open science"],"title":"Psycholinguistic norms for more than 300 lexical signs in German Sign Language (DGS)","type":"talk"},{"authors":["E Zaccarella","PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1619733600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1619733600,"objectID":"93fba9e9982e809931a04382a94fea8f","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/neuroscience-and-syntax/","publishdate":"2021-04-30T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/neuroscience-and-syntax/","section":"publication","summary":"The neuroscience of language uses experimental methodologies from cognitive science and neuroscience to investigate the neurobiological basis of linguistic phenomena in the human brain. In this chapter, we review neuroanatomical evidence for the human capacity to handle linguistic hierarchies, in line with the Chomskyan view of language as a biologically determined system computing abstract relations between words to generate grammatical linguistic sequences. We first focus on seminal neurological lesion studies assessing specific language impairments like agrammatism in patients with Broca’s aphasia. We stress the impact that this work has had on the development of neurolinguistics by highlighting the need to go beyond distinctions between language production and comprehension to investigate language competence at the basis of grammatical knowledge. In the central part of the chapter, we review current neuroscientific perspectives on the core aspects of human language put forward within the generative framework: universal principles of grammar, constituency, recursion, and Merge. We will provide evidence in favor of a fronto-temporal network in the left hemisphere comprising the connection between Brodmann area (BA) 44, the posterior portion of Broca’s area, and the posterior temporal cortex along a dorsal fiber track crucial for syntactic processing. The temporal dynamics driving the internal construction of hierarchical linguistic structure will be also introduced. An overview of maturational stages of the dorsal pathway and their relevance for the mastering of syntax will then be sketched out. We conclude by putting forward the hypothesis that the dorsal fiber tract connecting BA 44 to the posterior temporal cortex may constitute a crucial neurological precondition for the emergence of the human capacity of handling hierarchical linguistic structures. On this account, we believe that Chomsky’s notion of language as a biological system and the study of grammatical competence as distinct from performance factors have had and will continue to have profound implications for neuroscientific approaches to the study of language. Therefore, increasing collaboration between linguistics and neuroscience is strongly desirable to bring the relation between neural data and linguistic phenomena to a deeper level of understanding.","tags":["neuroscience","syntax","minimalism","language processing","language development","evolution of language"],"title":"Neuroscience and syntax","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1613685600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1613685600,"objectID":"2e8ccd1e9da8483800420eca785e8844","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/openposer-package-for-analyzing-openpose-motion-tracking-data-in-r/","publishdate":"2021-02-19T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/openposer-package-for-analyzing-openpose-motion-tracking-data-in-r/","section":"publication","summary":"Researchers in the fields of sign language and gesture studies frequently present their participants with video stimuli showing actors performing linguistic signs or co-speech gestures. Up to now, such video stimuli have been mostly controlled only for some of the technical aspects of the video material (e.g., duration of clips, encoding, framerate, etc.), leaving open the possibility that systematic differences in video stimulus materials may be concealed in the actual motion properties of the actor’s movements. Computer vision methods such as *OpenPose* enable the fitting of body-pose models to the consecutive frames of a video clip and thereby make it possible to recover the movements performed by the actor in a particular video clip without the use of a point-based or markerless motion-tracking system during recording. The *OpenPoseR* package provides a straightforward and reproducible way of working with these body-pose model data extracted from video clips using *OpenPose*, allowing researchers in the fields of sign language and gesture studies to quantify the amount of motion (velocity and acceleration) pertaining only to the movements performed by the actor in a video clip. These quantitative measures can be used for controlling differences in the movements of an actor in stimulus video clips or, for example, between different conditions of an experiment. In addition, the package also provides a set of functions for generating plots for data visualization, as well as an easy-to-use way of automatically extracting metadata (e.g., duration, framerate, etc.) from large sets of video files.","tags":[],"title":"Controlling video stimuli in sign language and gesture research: The OpenPoseR package for analyzing OpenPose motion tracking data in R","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","G Papitto","AD Friederici","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":" Press coverage (selection):  English: \u0026ldquo;Sign language and the left half of the brain\u0026rdquo; in Psychology Today German: \u0026ldquo;Ein Areal für alle Sprachen\u0026rdquo; in Spektrum der Wissenschaft French: \u0026ldquo;Comment le cerveau traite la langue des signes\u0026rdquo; in Porquoi Docteur  Summary in German Sign Language (DGS):  ","date":1613340000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1613340000,"objectID":"63a44ec9ede55a96dbc0e548da6ded2b","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/functional-neuroanatomy-of-language-without-speech/","publishdate":"2021-02-15T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/functional-neuroanatomy-of-language-without-speech/","section":"publication","summary":"Sign language (SL) conveys linguistic information using gestures instead of sounds. Here, we apply a meta-analytic estimation approach to neuroimaging studies (N = 23; subjects = 316) and ask whether SL comprehension in deaf signers relies on the same primarily left-hemispheric cortical network implicated in spoken and written language (SWL) comprehension in hearing speakers. We show that: (a) SL recruits bilateral fronto-temporo-occipital regions with strong left-lateralization in the posterior inferior frontal gyrus known as Broca’s area, mirroring functional asymmetries observed for SWL. (b) Within this SL network, Broca’s area constitutes a hub which attributes abstract linguistic information to gestures. \u0026#40;c) SL-specific voxels in Broca’s area are also crucially involved in SWL, as confirmed by meta-analytic connectivity modeling using an independent large-scale neuroimaging database. This strongly suggests that the human brain evolved a lateralized language network with a supramodal hub in Broca’s area which computes linguistic information independent of speech.","tags":["sign language","meta-analysis","modality-independence","Broca’s area"],"title":"Functional neuroanatomy of language without speech: An ALE meta-analysis of sign language","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","N-K Pendzich","J-M Cramer","M Steinbach","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":" Summary in German Sign Language (DGS):  ","date":1612994400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1612994400,"objectID":"87011c61bbd9909b98b93841c204fd7c","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/psycholinguistic-norms-for-more-than-300-lexical-signs-in-german-sign-language-dgs/","publishdate":"2021-02-11T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/psycholinguistic-norms-for-more-than-300-lexical-signs-in-german-sign-language-dgs/","section":"publication","summary":"Sign language offers a unique perspective on the human faculty of language by illustrating that linguistic abilities are not bound to speech and writing. In studies of spoken and written language processing, lexical variables such as, for example, age of acquisition have been found to play an important role, but such information is not as yet available for German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS). Here, we present a set of norms for frequency, age of acquisition, and iconicity for more than 300 lexical DGS signs, derived from subjective ratings by 32 deaf signers. We also provide additional norms for iconicity and transparency for the same set of signs derived from ratings by 30 hearing non-signers. In addition to empirical norming data, the dataset includes machine-readable information about a sign’s correspondence in German and English, as well as annotations of lexico-semantic and phonological properties: one-handed vs. two-handed, place of articulation, most likely lexical class, animacy, verb type, (potential) homonymy, and potential dialectal variation. Finally, we include information about sign onset and offset for all stimulus clips from automated motion-tracking data. All norms, stimulus clips, data, as well as code used for analysis are made available through the Open Science Framework in the hope that they may prove to be useful to other researchers: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/MZ8J4","tags":["German Sign Language","visuo-spatial modality","subjective ratings","lexical frequency","age of acquisition","iconicity","transparency"],"title":"Psycholinguistic norms for more than 300 lexical signs in German Sign Language (DGS)","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1610406000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1610406000,"objectID":"185b934cc41e0c6f1c3b546bfdee700f","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/basics-of-fmri-and-meta-analysis/","publishdate":"2021-01-12T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/basics-of-fmri-and-meta-analysis/","section":"talk","summary":"This basic lecture explores the fundamentals of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and neuroimaging meta-analysis. We start by laying out the basics of (f)MRI, look at the data we can acquire using this method and how we may analyze them, before we see how fMRI can be used to study the neurobiological basis of language. In the second part, we discuss why we should perform meta-analyses and introduce different methods for meta-analyzing neuroimaging data. Using a practical example, we will see how we can ask questions about language and brain meta-analytically.","tags":["fMRI","meta-analysis","language"],"title":"Basics of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and neuroimaging meta-analysis","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1573686000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1573686000,"objectID":"21dd97c6b4505e05272a0271f1a8d076","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/was-die-haende-ueber-das-gehirn-verraten/","publishdate":"2019-11-14T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/was-die-haende-ueber-das-gehirn-verraten/","section":"talk","summary":"Sprache ist ein Eckpfeiler menschlicher Kognition. In der Alltagssprache werden die Begriffe „Sprache“, „Sprechen“, und „Kommunikation“ oftmals gleichgesetzt. Die moderne Linguistik hingegen betrachtet die menschliche Sprachfähigkeit im Kern als einen neurobiologisch implementieren kognitiven Mechanismus. Durch die Kombination von einzelnen linguistischen Elementen (z.B: Wörtern) zu einer komplexeren Struktur (z.B. ein Satz) ermöglicht uns dieser Mechanismus eine potentiell unendliche Anzahl von grammatikalisch korrekten Sätzen zu produzieren und zu verstehen, obwohl wir diese noch nie zuvor gehört oder gelesen haben. Die linguistische Forschung der letzten Jahrzehnte hat gezeigt, dass die verschiedenen Gebärdensprachen, welche die bevorzugte Kommunikationsform von gehörlosen Menschen auf der ganzen Welt bilden, natürliche Sprachen mit einer ebenso komplexen linguistischen Organisation (z.B. auf Gebärden- oder Satzebene) sind. Die linguistische und neurobiologische Forschung zur Gebärdensprache ermöglicht demnach einen einzigartigen Blick auf die universellen kognitiven und neurobiologischen Grundlagen der menschlichen Sprachfähigkeit und zeichnet dabei ein Bild in dem Sprache und Sprechen keineswegs gleichzusetzen sind. In diesem Vortrag befassen wir uns zuerst mit den tiefliegenden Ähnlichkeiten von Gebärden- und Lautsprache aus einer linguistischen Perspektive. Aufbauend auf diesem Wissen widmen wir uns dann in einem kurzen allgemeinen Überblick den neurobiologischen Grundlagen von Lautsprache und werden anhand einer unlängst durchgeführten Meta-Analyse sehen, dass Gebärden- und Lautsprache in einem weitestgehend identischen Netzwerk in der linken Hirnhälfte verarbeitet werden. Diese Forschungsergebnisse unterschiedlicher Labore auf der ganzen Welt deuten folglich drauf hin, dass das menschliche Gehirn in seiner Evolutionsgeschichte ein sprachspezifisches Netzwerk entwickelt hat, welches auf die Verarbeitung von abstrakten linguistischen Informationen (z.B. einzelne Wörter, Gebärden oder ganze Sätze) spezialisiert ist, unabhängig davon ob es sich um Gebärden- oder Lautsprache handelt.","tags":["Wissenschaftskommunikation","science to professionals","science to public"],"title":"Was die Hände über das Gehirn verraten: Einblicke in die universellen kognitiven und neurobiologischen Grundlagen von Sprache","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","G Papitto","AD Friederici","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1563490800,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1563490800,"objectID":"64c70b53ffc30716c5a11b2ff0df151a","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/functional-neuroanatomy-sign-language-deaf-signers-ale-and-macm-siena/","publishdate":"2019-07-19T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/functional-neuroanatomy-sign-language-deaf-signers-ale-and-macm-siena/","section":"talk","summary":"The neurophysiological response during comprehension and production of sign language has been studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) since the advent of neuroimaging. Deaf signers have been shown to recruit similar perisylvian regions for sign language processing as those identified in studies on verbal language. To date, the neuroimaging literature on sign language has only been reviewed qualitatively and the involvement of right-hemispheric homologs of left perisylvian language regions remains subject to debate. We use Activation Likelihood Estimation to observe spatial convergence across studies on sign language comprehension (foci = 391; subjects = 316) and production (foci = 363; subjects = 90) in deaf signers. We further compare our dataset to an independent dataset of fMRI and PET studies of action observation (non-linguistic manual and facial actions) in hearing non-signers (foci = 549; subjects = 431), to identify regions associated with processing of human actions and movements irrespective of the presence of linguistic information. We find that sign language processing recruits a widely distributed bilateral fronto-occipito-temporal network with strong left-lateralization in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and especially Brodmann area (BA) 44. Activity in right IFG during sign language comprehension is not specific to language processing but may be specific to perceiving language in the visuo-spatial modality. Meta-Analytic Connectivity Mapping (MACM) confirms that the observed activation in left IFG primarily relates to language processing. Sign language production recruits a similar yet completely left-lateralized network with additional involvement of cognitive control regions. These results strongly suggest that Broca’s region (left BA 44 and 45) is a core area being recruited for language processing independently of the modality of language use (spoken, written, or signed).","tags":["talk","sign language","fMRI","PET","language networks","language modality","meta-analysis"],"title":"Functional neuroanatomy of sign language in deaf signers: Activation Likelihood Estimation meta-analysis and Meta-Analytic Connectivity Mapping","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1557356400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1557356400,"objectID":"83d6fa7e3202af63c830d3906f339032","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/data-sharing-reproducibility-cognitive-neuroscience-sign-language/","publishdate":"2019-05-09T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/data-sharing-reproducibility-cognitive-neuroscience-sign-language/","section":"talk","summary":"The acquisition of most neuroimaging data and especially magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data is laborious and cost-intensive. Nevertheless, the practice of data sharing is not commonplace in the field of cognitive neuroscience of sign language. We have recently completed the first ever meta-analysis of the neuroimaging literature on sign language to identify brain regions consistently involved in processing of sign language across studies and paradigms (Trettenbrein et al., forthcoming), in the course of which we encountered a variety of obstacles relating to data sharing and reproducibility. This presentation will recapitulate the issues we faced when carrying out our meta-analysis. Against this background, we will discuss how adopting Open Science practices and infrastructure for data sharing and reproducibility that are already established in neuroimaging at large may benefit future (meta-analytic) work. We end by sketching how Open Science ideas have been implemented in our own ongoing work on sign language.","tags":["talk","meta-analysis","open science","data sharing","sign language","cognitive neuroscience"],"title":"A meta-analytic perspective on data sharing and reproducibility in cognitive neuroscience of sign language","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1555110000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1555110000,"objectID":"85f52c9e037e8eb50cb2780ab5c4a778","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/brocas_region_modality_independent_hub_in_language_network/","publishdate":"2019-04-13T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/brocas_region_modality_independent_hub_in_language_network/","section":"talk","summary":"The neurophysiological response during comprehension of sign language has been studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) since the advent of neuroimaging. Deaf signers have been shown to recruit similar persivyliyan regions for sign language processing as those identified in studies on verbal language. To date, the neuroimaging literature on sign language has only been reviewed qualitatively and the involvement of right-hemispheric homologues of left persivyliyan language regions remains subject to debate. We recently used Activation Likelihood Estimation to observe spatial convergence across studies on sign language comprehension in deaf signers (Trettenbrein, Papitto, Zaccarella, \u0026 Friederici, in preparation) and found that sign language comprehension recruits widely distributed bilateral fronto-occipito-temporal networks, with the largest cluster in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) spanning Brodmann areas (BA) 44 and 45 (i.e. Broca's region). Mass-overlap analysis using cytoarchitectonic masks revealed the involvment of left but not right BA 44 in sign language comprehension. To identify regions associated with processing of human actions and movements irrespective of the presence of linguistic information we compared our dataset to an independent set of neuroimaging studies of action observation (non-linguistic manual and bodily actions) in hearing non-signers. Activity in right IFG during sign language comprehension converged with activation found in hearing non-signers when observing manual actions. This suggests that Broca's region is involved in processing of linguistic structure and meaning of sign language stimuli whereas right IFG activity may be specific to processing language in the visuo-gestural modality. Meta-analytic connectivity modelling confirms that voxels in the observed activation mass in left BA 44 and 45 co-activate with the core and extended language network in hearing non-signers during studies of language processing. These results point to Broca's region as a modality-independent hub in the language network that is involved in language processing regardless of the modality of language use (spoken, written, or signed).","tags":["sign language","fMRI","PET","Broca's region","language networks","language modality","meta-analysis"],"title":"Broca's region is a modality-independet hub in the language network: Insights from a recent meta-analysis","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","G Papitto","E Zaccarella","AD Friederici"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1554764400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1554764400,"objectID":"c8e0ee91b327eb49765c8f4d36619978","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/neural-basis-sign-language-processing-meta-analysis/","publishdate":"2019-04-09T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/neural-basis-sign-language-processing-meta-analysis/","section":"talk","summary":"The neurophysiological response during processing of sign language (SL) has been studied since the advent of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Nevertheless, the neural substrates of SL remain subject to debate, especially with regard to involvement and relative lateralization of SL processing without production in (left) inferior frontal gyrus (IFG; e.g., Campbell, MacSweeney, \u0026 Waters, 2007; Emmorey, 2006, 2015). Our present contribution is the first to address these questions meta-analytically, by exploring functional convergence on the whole-brain level using previous fMRI and PET studies of SL processing in deaf signers.  We screened 163 records in PubMed and Web of Science to identify studies of SL processing in deaf signers conducted with fMRI or PET that reported foci data for one of the two whole-brain contrasts: (1) “SL processing vs. control” or (2) “SL processing vs. low-level baseline”. This resulted in a total of 21 studies reporting 23 experiments matching our selection criteria. We manually extracted foci data and performed a coordinate-based Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) analysis using GingerALE (Eickhoff et al., 2009). Our selection criteria and the ALE method allow us to identify regions that are consistently involved in processing SL across studies and tasks.  Our analysis reveals that processing of SL stimuli of varying linguistic complexity engages widely distributed bilateral fronto-occipito-temporal networks in deaf signers. We find significant clusters in both hemispheres, with the largest cluster (5240 mm3) being located in left IFG, spanning Broca’s region (posterior BA 45 and the dorsal portion of BA 44). Other clusters are located in right middle and inferior temporal gyrus (BA 37), right IFG (BA 45), left middle occipital gyrus (BA 19), right superior temporal gyrus (BA 22), left precentral and middle frontal gyrus (BA 6 and 8), as well as left insula (BA 13). On these clusters, we calculated lateralization indices using hemispheric and anatomical masks: SL comprehension is slightly left-lateralized globally, and strongly left-lateralized in Broca’s region. Sub-regionally, left-lateralization is strongest in BA 44 (Table 1).  Next, we performed a contrast analysis between SL and an independent dataset of action observation in hearing non-signers (Papitto, Friederici, \u0026 Zaccarella, 2019) to determine which regions are associated with processing of human actions and movements irrespective of the presence of linguistic information. Only studies of observation of non-linguistic manual actions were included in the final set (n = 26), for example, excluding the handling of objects. Significant clusters involved in the linguistic aspects of SL comprehension were found in left Broca’s region (centered in dorsal BA 44), right superior temporal gyrus (BA 22), and left middle frontal and precentral gyrus (BA 6 and 8; Figure 1A, B, D and E). Meta-analytic connectivity modelling for the surviving cluster in Broca’s region using the BrainMap database then revealed that it is co-activated with the classical language network and functionally primarily associated with cognition and language processing (Figure 1C and D).  In line with studies of spoken and written language processing (Zaccarella, Schell, \u0026 Friederici, 2017; Friederici, Chomsky, Berwick, Moro, \u0026 Bolhuis, 2017), our meta-analysis points to Broca’s region and especially left BA 44 as a hub in the language network that is involved in language processing independent of modality. Right IFG activity is not language-specific but may be specific to the visuo-gestural modality (Campbell et al., 2007). Table 1: Lateralisation indices (AveLI, baseLI; Matsuo et al., 2012) and total number of active voxels in anatomical ROIs (maximum probability maps from Amunts et al., 1999) in left and right hemisphere (LH/RH).\nMask\n AveLI\n baseLI\n Number of voxels LH\n Number of voxels RH\n  BA 44\n 0.78\n 0.65\n 549\n 131\n  BA 45\n 0.54\n 0.25\n 389\n 282\n  Broca’sregion / BA 44 and BA 45\n 0.68\n 0.46\n 645\n 282\n  Entire hemisphere\n 0.24\n 0.20\n 1196\n 808\n   Figure 1: Significant clusters of sign language comprehension \u0026gt; action observation contrast and functional attributions in the BrainMap database. A. Sagittal plane at x = −46 showing the largest cluster (2336 mm3) in left IFG spanning BA 44 and BA 45, as well as parts of another smaller cluster (616 mm3) in precentral gyrus (BA 6). B. Sagittal plane at x = 46 showing the cluster in right STG (BA 22). C. Number of studies in the BrainMap database that report peaks in voxels of the cluster in left IFG (BA 44 and 45) organized by behavioral domain. D. Transverse plane of the left hemisphere at z = −14. E. Transverse plane of the right hemisphere at z = 4. F. Number of studies in the BrainMap database that report peaks in voxels of the cluster in left IFG (BA 44 and 45) organized by behavioral sub-domain within the domain of cognition.\n\nReferences \nAmunts, K., Schleicher, A., Bürgel, U., Mohlberg, H., Uylings, H. B., \u0026amp; Zilles, K. (1999). Broca’s region revisited: Cytoarchitecture and intersubject variability. The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 412(2), 319-341. Campbell, R., MacSweeney, M., \u0026amp; Waters, D. (2007). Sign language and the brain: A review. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 13(1), 3-20. doi: 10.1093/deafed/enm035 Eickhoff, S. B., Laird, A. R., Grefkes, C., Wang, L. E., Zilles, K., \u0026amp; Fox, P. T. (2009). Coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of neuroimaging data: A random-effects approach based on empirical estimates of spatial uncertainty. Human Brain Mapping, 30(9), 2907-2926. doi: 10.1002/hbm.20718 Emmorey, K. (2006). The role of Broca’s area in sign language. In Y. Grodzinsky \u0026amp; K. Amunts (Eds.), Broca’s region (p. 169-184). Oxford, England: Oxford UP. Emmorey, K. (2015). The neurobiology of sign language. In A. W. Toga, P. Bandettini, P. Thompson, \u0026amp; K. Friston (Eds.), Brain mapping: An encyclopedic reference (Vol. 3, p. 475-479). London, England: Academic Press. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-397025-1.00272-4 Friederici, A. D., Chomsky, N., Berwick, R. C., Moro, A., \u0026amp; Bolhuis, J. J. (2017). Language, mind and brain. Nature Human Behaviour. doi: 10.1038/s41562-017-0184-4 Matsuo, K., Chen, S.-H. A., \u0026amp; Tseng, W.-Y. I. (2012). AveLI: A robust lateralization index in functional magnetic resonance imaging using unbiased threshold-free computation. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 205(1), 119-129. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2011.12.020 Papitto, G., Friederici, A. D., \u0026amp; Zaccarella, E. (2019). A neuroanatomical comparison of action domains using Activation Likelihood Estimation meta-analysis [Unpublished Manuscript, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive \u0026amp; Brain Sciences]. Leipzig, Germany. Zaccarella, E., Schell, M., \u0026amp; Friederici, A. D. (2017). Reviewing the functional basis of the syntactic Merge mechanism for language: A coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis. Neuroscience \u0026amp; Biobehavioral Reviews, 80, 646-656. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.06.011 ","tags":["poster presentation","sign language","fMRI","PET","language networks","language modality","meta-analysis"],"title":"The neural basis of sign language processing in deaf signers: An Activation Likelihood Estimation meta-analysis","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","N-K Pendzich","J-M Cramer","S Kollien","AD Friederici","E Zaccarella"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1554678000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1554678000,"objectID":"b424d2df9c6eebd97c713ae9b9c6d0fa","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/psycholinguistic-norms-300-lexical-manual-signs-german-sign-language-dgs/","publishdate":"2019-04-08T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/psycholinguistic-norms-300-lexical-manual-signs-german-sign-language-dgs/","section":"talk","summary":"Sign languages provide researchers with an opportunity to ask empirical questions about the human language faculty that go beyond considerations specific to speech and writing. Whereas psycholinguists working with spoken and written language stimuli routinely control their materials for parameters such as lexical frequency and age of acquisition (AoA), no such information or normed stimulus sets are currently available to researchers working with German Sign Language (DGS). Our contribution presents the first norms for iconicity, familiarity, AoA, and transparency for DGS.\nThe normed stimulus set consists of more than 300 clips of manual DGS signs accom- panied by mouthings and non-manual components. Norms for the signs in the clips are derived from ratings by a total of 30 deaf signers in Leipzig, Göttingen, and Hamburg, as well as 30 hearing non-signers and native speakers of German in Leipzig. The rating procedure was implemented in a browser to ensure functionality and a similar procedure across locations and participants (Figure 1a), yet all participants performed the ratings on site in the presence of an experimenter. Deaf signers performed a total of three tasks in which they rated stimulus clips for iconicity, AoA, and familiarity. Such subjective measures of AoA and familiarity have been shown to be good proxies for corpus measures in studies of other spoken and sign languages (Vinson, Cormier, Denmark, Schembri, \u0026 Vigliocco, 2008). Hearing non-signers performed two tasks in which they first guessed the meaning of the signs in the clips to determine transparency and in the second task rated iconicity given the meaning.\nIn addition to empirical norming data (e.g., Figure 1b), we provide information about German and English correspondences of signs. The stimulus set has been annotated in machine-readable form with regard to lexico-semantic as well as phonological properties of signs: one-handed vs. two-handed, place of articulation, path movement, symmetry, most likely lexical class, animacy, verb type, (potential) homonymy, and potential dialectal variation. Information about sign on- and offset for all stimulus clips and a number of quantitative measures of movement are also available. These were derived from automated motion tracking by fitting a pose-estimation model (Figure 1c) to the clips using OpenPose (Wei, Ramakrishna, Kanade, \u0026 Sheikh, 2016) which allows us to quantify and automatically track movement (velocity and acceleration) beyond annotation (Figure 1d).\nIn this presentation, we will focus on providing an overview of the derived norms and attempt to put them in perspective of published empirical norms for other sign languages, for example, ASL and BSL (Vinson et al., 2008; Caselli, Sehyr, Cohen-Goldberg, \u0026 Emmorey, 2017), as well as comparable information for spoken languages. This includes a comparison of our subjective rating data with regard to frequency and AoA obtained using DGS signs with norms for other sign languages as well as with similar measures for German and English. We also discuss the relationship of mean iconicity ratings between deaf signers and hearing non-signers, as well as the relation of iconicity and transparency.\nOur norms and stimulus set are intended to control for psychologically relevant param- eters in future psycho- and neurolinguistic studies of DGS beyond the work of our own labs. Consequently, the norms, stimulus clips, cleaned raw data, and the R scripts used for analysis will be made available for download through the Open Science Framework. Figure 1: Example stimulus EVENING. a) Screenshot of AoA task for deaf signers. b) Iconicity ratings for this stimulus by hearing non-signers (1 “not iconic” – 7 “very iconic”). Mean and σ in red. c) Automated motion tracking provides quantitative information about movements in every clip. Arrows indicate points of interest used for the plot. d) Movement of manual articulators in the clip as revealed by motion tracking (darker colours indicate lower velocity, i.e. holds).\n\nReferences\nCaselli, N. K., Sehyr, Z. S., Cohen-Goldberg, A. M., \u0026amp; Emmorey, K. (2017). ASL-LEX: A lexical database of American Sign Language. Behavior Research Methods, 49(2), 784-801. doi: 10.3758/ s13428-016-0742-0\nVinson, D. P., Cormier, K., Denmark, T., Schembri, A., \u0026amp; Vigliocco, G. (2008). The British Sign Language (BSL) norms for age of acquisition, familiarity, and iconicity. Behavior Research Methods, 40(4), 1079-1087. doi: 10.3758/BRM.40.4.1079 Wei, S.-E., Ramakrishna, V., Kanade, T., \u0026amp; Sheikh, Y. (2016). Convolutional pose machines. arXiv:1602.00134 [cs]. ","tags":["poster presentation","sign language","psycholinguistics"],"title":"Psycholinguistic norms for more than 300 lexical manual signs in German Sign Language (DGS)","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1553814000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1553814000,"objectID":"46a045ae423738b818874877832d3ad8","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/wie-verarbeitet-das-gehirn-gebaerdensprache/","publishdate":"2019-03-29T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/wie-verarbeitet-das-gehirn-gebaerdensprache/","section":"talk","summary":"Eingangs stellen wir uns die Frage „Was ist ‚Sprache‘ denn überhaupt?“, bevor wir uns in aller Kürze mit der Linguistik von Gebärdensprachen beschäftigen\u0026#58; Dabei fragen wir uns wie bildhaft Gebärdensprachen eigentlich sind und wie ihre Grammatik aufgebaut ist. Wir werden sehen, dass Gebärdensprachen autonome natürliche Sprachen sind und widmen uns vor diesem Hintergrund ihrer Repräsentation im menschlichen Gehirn. Dabei zeigt sich, dass viele der Hirnregionen, welche in die Verarbeitung von Gebärdensprache bei Gehörlosen invovliert sind, auch während der Verarbeitung von Lautsprache bei Hörenden aktiv sind.","tags":["Wissenschaftskommunikation","science to public"],"title":"Wie verarbeitet das Gehirn Gebärdensprache?","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","G Papitto","E Zaccarella","AD Friederici"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1552777200,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1552777200,"objectID":"0bf87f4baae73bcf501e584e12011c34","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/functional-neuroanatomy-sign-language-meta-analysis/","publishdate":"2019-03-17T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/functional-neuroanatomy-sign-language-meta-analysis/","section":"talk","summary":"The neurophysiological response during comprehension and production of sign language has been studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) since the advent of neuroimaging. Deaf signers have been shown to recruit similar persivyliyan regions for sign language processing as those identified in studies on verbal language. To date, the neuroimaging literature on sign language has only been reviewed qualitatively and the involvement of right-hemispheric homologs of left persivyliyan language regions remains subject to debate. We use Activation Likelihood Estimation to observe spatial convergence across studies on sign language comprehension and production in deaf signers. To identify regions associated with processing of human actions and movements irrespective of the presence of linguistic information we compare our dataset to an independent dataset of fMRI and PET studies of action observation (non-linguistic manual and bodily actions) in hearing non-signers. We find that sign language processing recruits widely distributed bilateral fronto-occipito-temporal networks, with the largest cluster in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) spanning Brodmann areas (BA) 44 and 45. Activity in right IFG, bilateral temporo-occipital cortex, and left insula converges with activation found in hearing non-signers when observing manual actions. We find no spatial convergence in left temporal cortex but observe right superior temporal gyrus (BA 22) activity specific to sign language comprehension. Meta-analytic connectivity modelling confirms that the observed activation in left BA 44 and 45 primarily relates to language processing. Sign language production recruits a similar yet completely left-lateralized network with additional involvement of cognitive control regions. In sum, these results point to left IFG as a modality-independent hub in the language network.","tags":["poster presentation","sign language","fMRI","PET","language networks","language modality","meta-analysis"],"title":"Reviewing the functional neuroanatomy of sign language in deaf signers using Activation Likelihood Estimation","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein (Ed.)"],"categories":null,"content":"Print version of the Biolinguistics special issue celebrating the 50-year anniversary of the publication of Eric Lenneberg\u0026rsquo;s Biological Foundations of Language.\nPrint publication subsidised by the Referat für Wissenschaft \u0026amp; Forschung der Steiermarkischen Landesregierung.\n","date":1545084000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1545084000,"objectID":"856b29a4a51e24fe83b0d3cf0979fc9f","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/special-issue-50-years-later-lenneberg-print-edition/","publishdate":"2018-12-18T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/special-issue-50-years-later-lenneberg-print-edition/","section":"publication","summary":"Print version of the Biolinguistics special issue celebrating the 50-year anniversary of the publication of Eric Lenneberg\u0026rsquo;s Biological Foundations of Language.\nPrint publication subsidised by the Referat für Wissenschaft \u0026amp; Forschung der Steiermarkischen Landesregierung.","tags":["special issue","biolinguistics","Eric Lenneberg"],"title":"50 Years Later: A Tribute to Eric Lenneberg’s Biological Foundations of Language","type":"publication"},{"authors":["R Asano","P Bornus, P","JT Craft","S Dolscheid","SEM Faber","V Haase","M Heimerich","R Kopparti","M Lobben","AM Osawa","K Oudyk","PC Trettenbrein","T Varelmann","S Wehrle","R Ya","M Grice","K Vogeley"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1539122400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1539122400,"objectID":"c6ef42284fbe4751a7a5c00633816c42","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/spring-school-organizing-events-in-time/","publishdate":"2018-10-10T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/spring-school-organizing-events-in-time/","section":"publication","summary":"The interdisciplinary spring school “Language, music, and cognition: Organizing events in time” was held from February 26 to March 2, 2018 at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Cologne. Language, speech, and music as events in time were explored from different perspectives including evolutionary biology, social cognition, developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience of speech, language, and communication, as well as computational and biological approaches to language and music. There were 10 lectures, 4 workshops, and 1 student poster session.\n \n Overall, the spring school investigated language and music as neurocognitive systems and focused on a mechanistic approach exploring the neural substrates underlying musical, linguistic, social, and emotional processes and behaviors. In particular, researchers approached questions concerning cognitive processes, computational procedures, and neural mechanisms underlying the temporal organization of language and music, mainly from two perspectives: one was concerned with syntax or structural representations of language and music as neurocognitive systems (i.e., an intrapersonal perspective), while the other emphasized social interaction and emotions in their communicative function (i.e., an interpersonal perspective). The spring school not only acted as a platform for knowledge transfer and exchange but also generated a number of important research questions as challenges for future investigations.","tags":["spring school","language","music","cognition"],"title":"Spring school on language, music, and cognition: Organizing events in time","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1532300400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1532300400,"objectID":"c3f24469f915068ccc4fd22d7309db94","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/linguistik-als-kognitionswissenschaft-ein-kurz%C3%BCberblick/","publishdate":"2018-07-23T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/linguistik-als-kognitionswissenschaft-ein-kurz%C3%BCberblick/","section":"talk","summary":"Isaac Newtons Formulierung des Gravitationsgesetzes “exorcised the machine, leaving the ghost intact”, argumentiert Noam Chomsky. Er und andere Wissenschaftler sehen darin eine Grundvoraussetzung für den methodologischen Naturalismus der modernen Linguistik und anderer Kognitionswissenschaften, welche vor dem Hintergrund des für diese Disziplinen charakteristischen Zusammenspiels von Theorie und Empirie das Phänomen “Sprache” oder -- allgemeiner gesagt -- den Geist mit empirischen Methoden aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln untersuchen. Dieser Impulsvortag soll einen kurzen Überblick über die wesentlichen Entwicklungen in der modernen Linguistik in den letzten 60 Jahren bieten und versucht dabei diese mit dem neuropsychologischen und kognitiv-neurowissenschaftlichen Forschungsprogramm von Angela Friederici und Ihrer Abteilung am Max-Planck-Institut für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften in Leipzig über die letzten Jahrzehnte in Verbindung zu bringen. Wir orientieren uns dabei an einigen der großen Fragen von Linguistik und Kognitionswissenschaften: Was ist der Geist und wie können wir ihn empirisch Untersuchen? Was ist Sprache? Wie ist die menschliche Sprachfähigkeit im Gehirn implementiert? Wie entwickelt sich Sprache im Individuum? Und was ist der evolutionäre Ursprung unserer Sprachfähigkeit?","tags":["Wissenschaftskommunikation","science to public"],"title":"Linguistik als Kognitionswissenschaft: Ein Kurzüberblick","type":"talk"},{"authors":["U Kuhl","PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1529622000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1529622000,"objectID":"82c04ddfcff3ac53e4c5709ceeaf768b","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/wie-kommen-die-worte-ins-gehirn/","publishdate":"2018-06-22T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/wie-kommen-die-worte-ins-gehirn/","section":"talk","summary":"Im interaktiven Gespräch an unserem Riesengehirnscan begleiten wir gemeinsam ein Wort auf seiner Reise durchs Gehirn.","tags":["Wissenschaftskommunikation","science to public"],"title":"Wie kommen Worte ins Gehirn? Vom Hören zum Verstehen","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1517436000,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1517436000,"objectID":"cdf947bcf958c74dda4d19a4318b0556","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/lives-in-language-eric-heinz-lenneberg/","publishdate":"2018-02-01T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/lives-in-language-eric-heinz-lenneberg/","section":"publication","summary":"A brief look at the life and groundbreaking work of Eric Lenneberg, one of the co-founders of biolinguistics, that is the study of the biological foundations of the human capacity for language.","tags":["Eric Lenneberg","biology of language","science to public"],"title":"Lives in language: Eric Heinz Lenneberg (1921–1975)","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"Editorial for the Biolinguistics special issue celebrating the 50-year anniversary of the publication of Eric Lenneberg\u0026rsquo;s Biological Foundations of Language.\n","date":1514671200,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1514671200,"objectID":"9403dda6b05a37bedc1fda07afdc8a73","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/50-years-later-lenneberg-editorial/","publishdate":"2017-12-31T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/50-years-later-lenneberg-editorial/","section":"publication","summary":"Editorial for the Biolinguistics special issue celebrating the 50-year anniversary of the publication of Eric Lenneberg\u0026rsquo;s Biological Foundations of Language.","tags":["special issue","biolinguistics","Eric Lenneberg"],"title":"50 Years Later: A Tribute to Eric Lenneberg’s Biological Foundations of Language","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"An interview with Noam Chomsky, a co-founder of the field of biolinguistics, contemporary, and friend of Eric Lenneberg where he talks about the early days of the field, his work and relation with Lenneberg, and a number of other questions and scientific issues that (still) captivate us 50 years later.\n","date":1514671200,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1514671200,"objectID":"d70b5e600cbc23972703df5821fc7846","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/conversation-biological-study-language-noam-chomsky/","publishdate":"2017-12-31T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/conversation-biological-study-language-noam-chomsky/","section":"publication","summary":"An interview with Noam Chomsky, a co-founder of the field of biolinguistics, contemporary, and friend of Eric Lenneberg where he talks about the early days of the field, his work and relation with Lenneberg, and a number of other questions and scientific issues that (still) captivate us 50 years later.","tags":["special issue","biolinguistics","Noam Chomsky"],"title":"50 years later: A conversation about the biological study of language with Noam Chomsky","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"  “The study of language is pertinent to many fields of inquiry,”\n reads the first sentence of the preface to Biological Foundations of Language. Linguistics, as the scientific study of language, can indeed be approached from a myriad of different perspectives and in cooperation with researchers from a variety of disciplines, ranging from the humanities to the social and natural sciences. This month’s feature on the history of linguistics seeks to bring to mind again a true classic of interdisciplinary studies in language, Eric Lenneberg’s book entitled Biological Foundations of Language, which was first published in 1967\u0026mdash;exactly 50 years ago. As of today, Lenneberg’s book is widely considered to be one of the founding documents of the biological approach towards the study of the human language capacity, a (sub-)field that is now frequently referred to as biolinguistics.\nEric Heinz Lenneberg was born in Germany in 1921 and went to grammar school in Düsseldorf before his family, being Jewish, had to flee from the Nazis to Brazil. Lenneberg lived in Brazil until 1945, at which point he left for the United States in order to study at the University of Chicago. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree, Lenneberg continued his university education by studying linguistics and, in 1956, received his Ph.D. in linguistics and psychology from Harvard. However, Lenneberg was not done yet and went on to study neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. This sketch of his education already indicates why Eric Lenneberg was probably uniquely suited to co-found what would later become biolinguistics together with two other young students who were at Harvard at the same time, the graduate student Morris Halle and the even younger Harvard junior fellow Noam Chomsky.\nGenerally speaking, the scope and depth of Lenneberg’s Biological Foundations of Language is intimidating, even upon rereading 50 years after it was first published: In chapter after chapter, the contemporary reader will find ideas that they might think of as particularly “modern” or “new” already discussed in varying depth but always with persuasive clarity. For example, Lenneberg already outlined the possibility of a genetics of language and entertained a very nuanced view of the language-brain relationship long before any of the multitude of major technological advances in both, genetics and neuroimaging, that we have seen in the past decades were even looming on the horizon. More specifically, he already noted that “speech and language are not confined to the cerebral cortex” and warned us that there is no single brain region to which the language capacity is confined, while there clearly are specific regions and networks that are crucially involved in language processing. Despite this, Biological Foundations of Language was by no means intended to serve as a textbook or survey of the literature at the time; instead Lenneberg’s vision had been to write what he himself called a “theoretical treatise.”\nThe body of issues in which Lenneberg was interested and on which he would elaborate in his 1967 book is foreshadowed in a vast number of publications preceding Biological Foundations of Language. For example, in Lenneberg (1964) we read that\n “the facts presented [in this paper] do not constitute a theory. Let us hope they will lead to one in the future.”\n Biological Foundations of Language then was Eric Lenneberg’s attempt to get at least a step closer to such a theory, as is evident from the concluding chapter, in which he provides his attempt at such a biological theory of language. This explains why, in many respects, Lenneberg’s book was a latecomer to the party: Skinner’s take on language had famously been debunked by Chomsky (1959) and many a behavioral psychologist had been “converted” and was already advocating for a more nativist take on the study of language solely on the basis of arguments and analyses stemming from theoretical linguistics. Therefore, Biological Foundations of Language was, at least in part, also supposed\n “to provide a palpable biological plausibility for conclusions to which a number of uncomfortable Empiricists […] [had] committed themselves on the basis of formal argument alone” (Bem \u0026amp; Bem, 1968: 498–499).\n Fifty years ago, Lenneberg concluded Biological Foundations of Language by saying that\n “there are many reasons to believe that the processes [emphasis in original] by which the realized outer structure of a natural language comes about are deeply-rooted, species-specific, innate properties of man’s biological nature.”\n Up to this day, we have seen tremendous progress in many areas of biolinguistic inquiry that have essentially corroborated this conclusion, but a true integration of linguistics and (developmental) biology in Lenneberg’s spirit is still pending and can at best be considered an ongoing endeavor. For the most part, the connection between (theoretical) linguistics and biology tends to remain rather indirect, even in an area like neuroscience of language, the currently most promising point of contact with a fair number of new interesting insights stemming from interdisciplinary collaboration (see, e.g., Moro, 2008\u0026#47;2015; Friederici, 2017).\nLenneberg’s foundational book was ground-breaking insofar as he managed to formulate a coherent theory with regard to the biological basis of language for the very first time, thereby, in collaboration with many others, kicking off the development of the entire sub-field of biolinguistics. Clearly, the biological study of the human language capacity has progressed significantly over the past 50 years, so one could now hardly use Biological Foundations of Language for teaching a class on the subject matter. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the book is a true classic and as such should be something that we regularly go back to. The 50-year anniversary of its publication provides such an opportunity and the inclined reader will be pleasantly surprised at how accurate Lenneberg’s analyses and predictions still are; even more so, with some minor additions and modifications, the biological theory of language development he put forward remains most accurate to this day.\nPrimary sources  Bem, D. J., \u0026amp; Bem, S. L. 1968. Nativism revisited: A review of Eric H. Lenneberg’s Biological Foundations of Language. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 11(4), 497–501. Berwick, R. C. 2017. A feeling for the phenotype. In J. McGilvray (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Chomsky, 87–109 (2nd edn.). Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Chomsky, N. 1959. A review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal behavior. Language, 35(1), 26–58. Chomsky, N. 2012. The science of language: Interviews with James McGilvray. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Friederici, A. D. 2017. Language in our brain: The origins of a uniquely human capacity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lenneberg, E. H. 1964. A biological perspective of language. In E. H. Lenneberg (Ed.), New directions in the study of language, 65–88. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lenneberg, E. H. 1967. Biological foundations of language. New York: Wiley. Moro, A. 2008\u0026#47;2015. The boundaries of Babel: The brain and the enigma of impossible languages (2nd edn.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Neisser, U., D. Tapper, \u0026amp; E. J. Gibson. 1975. Eric H. Lenneberg: September 19, 1921—May 31, 1975. Office of the Dean of the University Faculty of Cornell University.  Further reading  Boeckx, C., \u0026amp; V. M. Longa. 2011. Lenneberg’s views on language development and evolution and their relevance for modern biolinguistics. Biolinguistics, 5(3), 254–273. Lenneberg, E. H. 1969. On explaining language. Science, 164(3880), 635–643.  ","date":1508450400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1508450400,"objectID":"1405d67f49daf83a53b825ce08ca1dc6","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/this-time-in-linguistic-history-eric-lenneberg/","publishdate":"2017-10-20T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/this-time-in-linguistic-history-eric-lenneberg/","section":"publication","summary":"“The study of language is pertinent to many fields of inquiry,”\n reads the first sentence of the preface to Biological Foundations of Language. Linguistics, as the scientific study of language, can indeed be approached from a myriad of different perspectives and in cooperation with researchers from a variety of disciplines, ranging from the humanities to the social and natural sciences. This month’s feature on the history of linguistics seeks to bring to mind again a true classic of interdisciplinary studies in language, Eric Lenneberg’s book entitled Biological Foundations of Language, which was first published in 1967\u0026mdash;exactly 50 years ago.","tags":["biolinguistics","Eric Lenneberg"],"title":"This time in linguistics history: A 50th anniversary tribute to Eric H. Lenneberg’s Biological Foundations of Language","type":"publication"},{"authors":["P Blom","T Angerer","PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1504090800,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1504090800,"objectID":"3c3e0c560139b16141f5852cf80926d0","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/demokratie-vielerorts-auf-der-roten-liste/","publishdate":"2017-08-30T13:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/demokratie-vielerorts-auf-der-roten-liste/","section":"publication","summary":"\"Der freiheitliche, säkularisierte Staat lebt von Voraussetzungen, die er selbst nicht garantieren kann,\" schrieb der deutsche Verfassungsrechtler Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde vor einem halben Jahrhundert. Heute, wo Demokratien vielerorts ausgehöhlt und untergraben werden, scheint diese Beobachtung aktueller denn je. Worin aber bestehen diese Voraussetzungen? Und warum sollte es nicht ausreichen, freie und geheime Wahlen abzuhalten und die Mehrheit entscheiden zu lassen, beispielsweise durch Volksabstimmungen?\n \n Was also braucht die Demokratie zum Überleben? Worin bestehen ihre Voraussetzungen, wie können sie gesichert werden? Wie relevant ist die Idee der wehrhaften Demokratie angesichts rechtspopulistischer und antidemokratischer Tendenzen?","tags":["Politik"],"title":"Demokratie – vielerorts auf der \"roten Liste\"","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1501538400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1501538400,"objectID":"087a5e48da1e66614745cfd7dd92068f","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/looking-for-language-in-the-brain/","publishdate":"2017-08-01T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/looking-for-language-in-the-brain/","section":"publication","summary":"A round-up of research into language and the brain, from the early days to contemporary studies that use a variety of neuroimaging techniques, sketching the current relationship between linguistics and neuroscience.","tags":["linguistics","neuroscience","language and brain","biology of language","science to public"],"title":"Looking for language in the brain","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1494021600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1494021600,"objectID":"781cf7dc17be0acb2961f2fdf3a77602","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/steirische-plagiatsaffaere-es-geht-um-nix/","publishdate":"2017-05-06T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/steirische-plagiatsaffaere-es-geht-um-nix/","section":"publication","summary":"In der Haltung der Grazer Spitzenpolitiker im Fall Buchmann kommt vor allem die Geringschätzung der Wissenschaft zum Ausdruck – das ist fatal.","tags":["Wissenschaft","Politik","Christian Buchmann"],"title":"Steirische Plagiatsaffäre: \"Es geht um nix?\"","type":"publication"},{"authors":[],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1490396400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1490396400,"objectID":"f299d1061062e9667f13210f8b78584f","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/case-against-synaptic-plasticity-brain-basic-memory-mechanism/","publishdate":"2017-03-25T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/case-against-synaptic-plasticity-brain-basic-memory-mechanism/","section":"talk","summary":"Synaptic plasticity is widely considered to provide the neurobiological basis of learning and memory. From the perspective of “classical” cognitive science, this view cannot be upheld. Here, I summarise the argument against the synapse as the (sole) locus of memory and review recent neurobiological evidence reenforcing long-standing reservations.","tags":["poster presentation","memory","synaptic plasticity","neural computation"],"title":"The case against synaptic plasticity as the brain’s basic memory mechanism","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1479333600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1479333600,"objectID":"74088d2165fd6e8f033a3fb9bdc48d7b","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/synapse-locus-memory/","publishdate":"2016-11-17T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/synapse-locus-memory/","section":"publication","summary":"Synaptic plasticity is widely considered to be the neurobiological basis of learning and memory by neuroscientists and researchers in adjacent fields, though diverging opinions are increasingly being recognized. From the perspective of what we might call “classical cognitive science” it has always been understood that the mind/brain is to be considered a computational-representational system. Proponents of the information-processing approach to cognitive science have long been critical of connectionist or network approaches to (neuro-)cognitive architecture, pointing to the shortcomings of the associative psychology that underlies Hebbian learning as well as to the fact that synapses are practically unfit to implement symbols. Recent work on memory has been adding fuel to the fire and current findings in neuroscience now provide first tentative neurobiological evidence for the cognitive scientists' doubts about the synapse as the (sole) locus of memory in the brain. This paper briefly considers the history and appeal of synaptic plasticity as a memory mechanism, followed by a summary of the cognitive scientists' objections regarding these assertions. Next, a variety of tentative neuroscientific evidence that appears to substantiate questioning the idea of the synapse as the locus of memory is presented. On this basis, a novel way of thinking about the role of synaptic plasticity in learning and memory is proposed.","tags":["memory","synaptic plasticity","neural computation"],"title":"The demise of the synapse as the locus of memory: A looming paradigm shift?","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein","A Peltzer-Karpf"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1451948400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1451948400,"objectID":"32e8a3b70d6d0eb1369bff5968a04375","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/talk/language-networks-beyond-localisation/","publishdate":"2016-01-05T00:00:00+01:00","relpermalink":"/talk/language-networks-beyond-localisation/","section":"talk","summary":"The cognitive revolution of the 1950s reinvigorated the idea that the brain is the organ enabling the mind. Hence, the human ability to acquire and use language, a fundamentally mental property, must be considered and studied as a property of the brain as well. Nowadays, hardly anyone would doubt this exposition, and neuroscientists have successfully identified a variety of brain regions critically involved in language processing. Classical neurolinguistic models by and large expected language to be clearly localisable in the brain. However, the advent of neuroimaging has (again) shown this idea to be problematic, as is the case for all higher cognitive functions. For a more complete picture, neurolinguistics has moved beyond localisation, towards functional connectivity and network approaches, attempting to capture the dynamics of neural connectivity and activity patterns. From today’s perspective, language in the brain is best understood as a distributed dynamic network, not a single localisable function. Future focus will thus lie on refining knowledge about structure, connectivity, and functionality of network nodes, as well as determining the dynamic networks for specific linguistic functions (e.g., syntax, semantics, pragmatics). Ultimately, some general functional features of language, such as the merging of elements, might be fairly localisable, whereas the “whole” of language, owing to its complexity, remains widely distributed. The biggest remaining challenge then is to discern whether such a network analysis can actually aid attempts at forging links between linguistics and neuroscience.","tags":["poster presentation","language networks","localization","neural computation"],"title":"The language network(s): Beyond localisation? ","type":"talk"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1448920800,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1448920800,"objectID":"b4dc882c69808231c556ae95899a988b","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/grammar-in-universal-grammar/","publishdate":"2015-12-01T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/grammar-in-universal-grammar/","section":"publication","summary":"This short piece addresses the confusion over terminology that has reigned, and partly still reigns, when it comes to the concept of Universal Grammar (UG). It is argued that whilst there might be changes in terminology and theory, conceptually UG cannot be eliminated. From a biolinguistic perspective, UG is not a hypothesis by any rational epistemological standard, but an axiom. Along these lines, the contemporary evolutionary perspective on the language faculty (FL) is briefly discussed to then argue that UG is necessarily part of FL in both a narrow and broad sense. Ultimately, regardless of terminology, UG is inevitably one of the factors determining the growth of FL.","tags":["Universal Grammar","Faculty of Language","I-language","universals","minimalism","evolution of language"],"title":"The “grammar” in Universal Grammar: A biolinguistic clarification","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1444082400,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1444082400,"objectID":"fad3ddfc1c5185f137da578e349b91cc","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/cultural-recycling-neural-substrates/","publishdate":"2015-10-06T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/cultural-recycling-neural-substrates/","section":"publication","summary":"","tags":["language evolution","evo-devo","cultural recycling"],"title":"Commentary “Cultural recycling of neural substrates during language evolution and development”","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1438639200,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1438639200,"objectID":"28009614752343ae717c48b68d194ebf","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/reinstatement-long-term-memory-aplysia/","publishdate":"2015-08-04T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/reinstatement-long-term-memory-aplysia/","section":"publication","summary":"","tags":["memory","Hebbian learning","Aplysia"],"title":"Reinstatement of long-term memory following erasure of its behavioral and synaptic expression in Aplysia","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1430431200,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1430431200,"objectID":"3948eac70e87b3ebdaf48b7889bd59e8","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/review-cognitive-neuroscience-of-language-david-kemmerer/","publishdate":"2015-05-01T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/review-cognitive-neuroscience-of-language-david-kemmerer/","section":"publication","summary":"","tags":["language","neuroscience","book review"],"title":"Broca’s problem as it stands: Review of Cognitive Neuroscience of Language","type":"publication"},{"authors":["PC Trettenbrein"],"categories":null,"content":"","date":1426629600,"expirydate":-62135596800,"kind":"page","lang":"en","lastmod":1426629600,"objectID":"8a46d6a9b77d3ab5cbcbfe4fc45ebab6","permalink":"https://trettenbrein.biolinguistics.eu/publication/review-the-altruistic-brain-donald-pfaff/","publishdate":"2015-03-18T00:00:00+02:00","relpermalink":"/publication/review-the-altruistic-brain-donald-pfaff/","section":"publication","summary":"","tags":["morality","neuroscience","book review"],"title":"Neuroscience and human nature: Review of The Altruistic Brain","type":"publication"}]