For the automatic creation of fictional texts using artificial intelligence (AI), the Cologne media technology company "ella" and the subproject C05 are cooperating. For this, C05 contributes to the quality control of the AI texts. Firstly, scientific quality criteria will be established, on the basis of which the texts will be then empirically analyzed and evaluated. Secondly, the results are re-integrated back into the ella-AI. Click here for the press release (in German, October 2019).

Contact: Stefan Hinterwimmer, hinterwimmer(at)uni-wuppertal.de.

The interdisciplinary research cooperation "Visual and auditory perception processes in people with autism spectrum disorders" between the Institute of Linguistics and Phonetics and the University Hospital of Cologne investigates the communicative behaviour of people with autism in order to gain a better understanding of the strengths and challenges of this group and thus support communication.

The interdisciplinary research group „Brain modulation and speech motor control“ is a collaboration between phoneticians (Institute of Linguistics and Phonetics, University of Cologne) and neurologists (working group “Movement Disorders and Deep Brain Stimulation", University Hospital Cologne). We investigate the relationship between movement disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease or Essential Tremor, and speech motor function. We also take into consideration the effects that result from a deep brain stimulation, which is an invasive therapeutic option for these diseases. In addition to clinical testing of the speech system, such as diadochokinesis tasks and syllable productions, we focus on prosodic aspects, such as the marking of prosodic prominence in natural sentence production and its relevance for speech therapy. Together with the CRC, we organized the international conference „Neurospeech 22“ and jointly supervise doctoral students within the CRC who want to establish themselves in an interdisciplinary way.

Currently, we are building a speech database to increase the knowledge about speech motor changes in Parkinson’s disease. The aim is to better classify the development of speech deficits that occur throughout the progression of Parkinson’s disease in order to understand how speech function changes from the healthy aging process, through to the prodromal phase (REM sleep behavior disorder), to the motor phase. In consideration to cognitive and motor functions, both disease-specific and therapy-related patterns will be determined in order to identify speech-based biomarkers that on the one hand allow an early detection of both diseases (REM sleep behavior disorder, Parkinson’s disease) by means of speech recognition and on the other hand indicate the earliest time of speech therapy treatment.

The interdisciplinary project "LAMBDA: Language Markers and Brain Dysfunction in Early Psychosis" is a cooperation between linguists and medical scientists funded by the University of Cologne's Excellent Research Support Program within the framework of UoC Forum. Between July 2023 and June 2025, researchers based in Germany and Spain will work together to gain insights into the effects of early-state psychosis on language.

Abstract

Mental life is unstable, fluctuating incessantly. In about 3% of the world’s population, this dynamics reaches moments of collapse of function that we identify through a first psychotic episode. An ability to predict when these episodes will occur would be a major advance in public health. In the prevailing absence of biomarkers for psychosis, a wave of new work has turned to language function as a new bio-social marker of mental state changes. We propose a unique collaboration between biological psychiatry, linguistics, and cognitive neuroscience, to identify a linguistic signal of psychosis in language and relate it to brain dysfunction using fMRI. This groundwork will allow us to critically assess the transformative potential of linguistic analysis for clinical psychiatry and the role of language in psychotic thought itself.

Team

• Dr. Derya Çokal, Phil Fac, German Language and Literature I (Linguistics);
• Prof. Dr. Klaus von Heusinger, Phil Fac, German Language and Literature I (Linguistics)
• Prof. Dr. Joseph Kambeitz (corresponding PI), Med Fac, Clinic and Polyclinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy;
• Prof. Dr. Dr. Kai Vogeley, Med Fac, Clinic and Polyclinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy;
• Prof. Dr. Wolfram Hinzen, Research Professor, Catalan Institute of Advanced Studies, Barcelona, Spain. (Clinical Linguistics)