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Music and language are both regulated by a syntactic system that allows for the combination of single elements into higher order structures. Patel (2003) suggested that music and language processing share (neural) resources used for structural processing. Previous electrophysiological studies (e.q., Koelsch et al., 2005) investigating music-language interactions have relied exclusively on the event- related-potential (ERP), which does not provide information regarding neural oscillations that are relevant for higher cognition. Further, possible interactions with pitch and melody have not been investigated, yet melody contains multiple structured relationships between individual tones. The present research aims to fill these gaps in the literature with special emphasis on melodic processing and on neural oscillations. In all experiments (two EEG and three behavioural) sentences with or without a violation in the last word were visually presented in synch with aurally presented music with or without a (harmonic or melodic) violation in the final note. The first EEG experiment investigated patterns of brain oscillations reporting evidence of a shared activation of the delta-theta band. Next, three behavioural experiments investigated the effect of melodic violations on the processing of language. Melodic violations were constructed by a computational model of pitch expectation (Pearce, 2005), which systematically estimates the conditional probability of final notes in a melody: high and low probability notes are perceived as expected and unexpected notes, respectively. In all three experiments participants showed facilitation for processing of incorrect sentences as reflected in a reduced language expectancy effect (faster processing for correct than for incorrect sentences) when sentences were presented on unexpected than on expected notes; this effect was .increasingly suppressed with working memory load. Finally, the second EEG experiment complemented previously reported interactions in the ERP and oscillatory domains by investigating interactions with melody. In conclusion, these studies show that a system of shared networks is activated during processing of music and language.

How do we make decisions when we are uncertain? In more real-world settings there is often a vast array of information available to guide the decision, from an understanding of the social situation, to prior beliefs and experience, to information available in the current environment. Yet much of the research into uncertain decision-making has typically studied the process by isolating it from this rich source of information that decision-makers usually have available to them. This thesis takes a different approach. To explore how decisions are made under uncertainty in more real-world settings, this thesis considers how raters decide if someone is lying or telling the truth. Because people are skilled liars, there is little information available to make a definitive decision. How do raters negotiate the ambiguous environment to reach a decision? Raters show a truth bias, which is to say they judge statements as truthful more often than they are so. Recent research has begun to consider dual process theories, suggesting there are two routes for processing information. They claim the truth bias results from an error-prone processing route, but that a more effortful and analytical processing route may overcome it. I will generate a set of testable hypotheses that arise from the dual process position and show that the theory does not stand up to the test. The truth bias can be better explained as resulting from a single process that attempts to make the most 3 informed guess despite being uncertain. To make the informed guess, raters come to rely on context-relevant information when the behaviour of the speaker is not sufficiently diagnostic. An adaptive decision maker position is advocated. I propose the truth bias is an emergent property of making the best guess. That is, in a different context where speakers may be expected to lie, a bias towards disbelieving should be seen. I argue context-dependency is key to understanding decision-making under uncertainty.

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Six experiments investigated the influence of several grouping cues within the framework of the Verbal Transformation Effect (VTE, Experiments 1 to 4) and Phonemic Transformation Effect (PTE, Experiments 5 and 6), where listening to a repeated word (VTE) or sequence of vowels (PTE) produces verbal transformations (VTs). In Experiment 1, the influence of F0 frequency and lateralization cues (ITDs) was investigated in terms of the pattern of VTs. As the lateralization difference increased between two repeating sequences, the number of forms was significantly reduced with the fewest forms reported in the dichotic condition. Experiment 2 explored whether or not propensity to report more VTs on high pitch was due to the task demands of monitoring two sequences at once. The number of VTs reported was higher when listeners were asked to attend to one sequence only, suggesting smaller attentional constraints on the task requirements. In Experiment 3, consonant-vowel transitions were edited out from two sets of six stimuli words with ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ formant transitions, respectively. Listeners reported more forms in the spliced-out than in the unedited case for the strong-transition words, but not for those with weak transitions. A similar trend was observed for the F0 contour manipulation used in Experiment 4 where listeners reported more VTs and forms for words following a discontinuous F0 contour. In Experiments 5 and 6, the role of F0 frequency and ITD cues was investigated further using a related phenomenon – the PTE. Although these manipulations had relatively little effect on the number of VTs and forms reported, they did influence the particular forms heard. In summary, the current experiments confirmed that it is possible to successfully investigate auditory grouping cues within the VTE framework and that, in agreement with recent studies, the results can be attributed to the perceptual re-grouping of speech sounds.

Metaphors have been increasingly associated with cognitive functions, which means that metaphors structure how we think and express ourselves. Metaphors are embodied in our basic physical experience, which is one reason why certain abstract concepts are expressed in more concrete terms, such as visible entities, journeys, and other types of movement, spaces etc. This communicative relevance also applies to specialised, institutionalised settings and genres, such as those produced in or related to higher education institutions, among which is spoken academic discourse. A significant research gap has been identified regarding spoken academic discourse and metaphors therein, but also given the fact that with increasing numbers of students in higher education and international research and cooperation e.g. in the form of invited lectures, spoken academic discourse can be seen as nearly omnipresent. In this context, research talks are a key research genre. A mixed methods study has been conducted, which investigates metaphors in a corpus of eight fully transcribed German and English L1 speaker conference talks and invited lectures, totalling to 440 minutes. A wide range of categories and functions were identified in the corpus. Abstract research concepts, such as results or theories are expressed in terms of concrete visual entities that can be seen or shown, but also in terms of journeys or other forms of movement. The functions of these metaphors are simplification, rhetorical emphasis, theory-construction, or pedagogic illustration. For both the speaker and the audience or discussants, anthropomorphism causes abstract and complex ideas to become concretely imaginable and at the same time more interesting because the contents of the talk appear to be livelier and hence closer to their own experience, which ensures the audience’s attention. These metaphor categories are present in both the English and the German sub corpus of this study with similar functions.

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This thesis investigates multiple-object naming in young and older speakers, focusing on the coordination of speech planning with speech articulation and with shifts of visual attention. The results demonstrate that both young and older speakers plan object names sequentially, but that they differ in how successful they are in maintaining speech fluency. The results further show that both young and older speakers are able to process extrafoveal objects, even when the processing load for the fixated object is high. Extrafoveal processing appears unaffected by variation in foveal load, suggesting that fixated and extrafoveal objects are attended to sequentially. The thesis studies the processes underlying the reversed length effect observed in young speakers' multiple-object naming. The findings demonstrate that this effect arises from differences in spoken durations between long and short first object names. It may be linked to advance planning of the next object name or to coordination of planning processes for the first object name. Finally, a study of single-object naming in a patient with impaired object recognition and name retrieval yielded results consistent with the patient having two separate deficits, one in object recognition and one in name retrieval, which supports a serial processing view of object naming.

This study investigated sex and menstrual cycle effects on speech and related behaviours. The test battery included motor and speeded speech based tasks (manual pegboard, single and multiple syllable repetitions, multiple word repetitions and verbal fluency) and lateralised auditory perception of syllables (dichotic listening). Speech production was analysed for speed and accuracy measures.