Professor Matthias Schlesewsky

Professor UniSA Justice & Society

email Matthias.Schlesewsky@unisa.edu.au

Research Degree Supervisor

Research

Research focus

Cognitive Sciences
Linguistics
Neurosciences
Psychology
Psychology and Cognitive Sciences

Highlights

My research focuses on the development of a model of language that is neurobiologically plausible, i.e. that respects basic design principles of the human brain such as hierarchical organisation of different processing streams (dorsal vs. ventral) or separable but internally unified computational properties for each of these streams. In addition to this biological perspective, model development is inspired by the idea that language universals, which can be identified within and across the languages of the world, are informative for our understanding of the neurobiology of language.

Additionally, I am also interested in:

The neurobiology of reading, i.e. how reading as a recent cultural invention is implemented in the brain and - most... Read more

Research

Outputs

Research outputs for the last seven years are shown below. To see earlier years visit Scopus

Open access indicates that an output is open access.

Chapters

Year	Output
2015	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Schlesewsky, M 2015, 'Scales in real-time language comprehension: a review', in I Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, A Malchukov & M Richards (eds), Scales and hierarchies: a cross-disciplinary perspective, De Gruyter Mouton, Germany, ch. 12, pp. 321-352.
2014	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Schlesewsky, M 2014, 'Competition in argument interpretation: evidence from the neurobiology of language', in B MacWhinney, A Malchukov, and E Moravcsik (eds), Competing motivations in grammar and usage, Oxford University Press, UK, ch. 7 pp. 107-126. 2
2012	Kretzschmar, F, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I, Staub, A, Roehm, D & Schlesewsky, M 2012, 'Prominence facilitates ambiguity resolution: On the interaction between referentiality, thematic roles and word order in syntactic reanalysis', in M Lamers & P de Swart (eds), Case, word order, and prominence : Interacting cues in language production and comprehension, Springer, Netherlands, ch. 11, pp. 239-271. 10 3

Journal Articles

Year	Output
2021	Blohm, S, Schlesewsky, M, Menninghaus, W & Scharinger, M 2021, 'Text type attribution modulates pre-stimulus alpha power in sentence reading', Brain and Language, vol. 214, article no. 104894, pp. 1-6. 2 2
2021	Cross, ZR, Zou-Williams, L, Wilkinson, EM, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2021, 'Mini Pinyin: a modified miniature language for studying language learning and incremental sentence processing', Behavior Research Methods, vol. 53, no .3, pp. 1218-1239. Open access 5
2021	Immink, MA, Cross, ZR, Chatburn, A, Baumeister, J, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2021, 'Resting-state aperiodic neural dynamics predict individual differences in visuomotor performance and learning', Human Movement Science, vol. 78, article no. 102829, pp. 1-13. 3 3 3
2021	Jano, S, Romeo, J, Hendrickx, MD, Schlesewsky, M & Chatburn, A 2021, 'Sleep influences neural representations of true and false memories: an event-related potential study', Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, vol. 186, article no. 107553, pp. 1-14. 1
2021	Liebherr, M, Corcoran, AW, Alday, PM, Coussens, S, Bellan, V, Howlett, CA, Immink, MA, Kohler, M, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2021, 'EEG and behavioral correlates of attentional processing while walking and navigating naturalistic environments', Scientific Reports, vol. 11, no. 1, article no. 22325, pp. 1-13. Open access 3 3 11
2020	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I, Roehm, D, Mailhammer, R & Schlesewsky, M 2020, 'Language processing as a precursor to language change: evidence from Icelandic', Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, article no. 3013, pp. 1-18. Open access 5 4 8
2020	Chan, RW, Alday, PM, Zou-Williams, L, Lushington, K, Schlesewsky, M, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Immink, MA 2020, 'Focused-attention meditation increases cognitive control during motor sequence performance: Evidence from the N2 cortical evoked potential', Behavioural Brain Research, vol. 384, article no. 112536, pp. 1-17. Open access 6 6 14
2020	Kurthen, I, Meyer, M, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2020, 'Individual differences in peripheral hearing and cognition reveal sentence processing differences in healthy older adults', Frontiers in Neuroscience, vol. 14, article number 573513, pp. 1-20. Open access 3 2 11
2020	Kyriaki, L, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2020, 'Semantic reversal anomalies under the microscope: task and modality influences on language‐associated event‐related potentials', European Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 52, no. 7, pp. 3803-3827. Open access 2 2 8
2019	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Schlesewsky, M 2019, 'Toward a neurobiologically plausible model of language-related, negative event-related potentials', Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, article no. 298, pp. 1-17. Open access 58 55 17
2019	Brilmayer, I, Werner, A, Primus, B, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Schlesewsky, M 2019, 'The exceptional nature of the first person in natural story processing and the transfer of egocentricity', Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 411-427. 8 8 4
2018	Blohm, S, Wagner, V, Schlesewsky, M & Menninghaus, W 2018, 'Sentence judgments and the grammar of poetry: linking linguistic structure and poetic effect', Poetics, vol. 69, pp. 41-56. 4 3 8
2018	Corcoran, AW, Alday, PM, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2018, 'Toward a reliable, automated method of individual alpha frequency (IAF) quantification', Psychophysiology, vol. 55, no. 7, pp. 1-21. Open access 52 49 30
2018	Cross, ZR, Kohler, MJ, Schlesewsky, M, Gaskell, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2018, 'Sleep-dependent memory consolidation and incremental sentence comprehension: computational dependencies during language learning as revealed by neuronal oscillations', Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 12, article 18, pp. 1-18. Open access 8 10 25
2018	He, Y, Nagels, A, Schlesewsky, M & Straube, B 2018, 'The role of gamma oscillations during integration of metaphoric gestures and abstract speech', Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 9 article no. 1348, pp. 1-11. Open access 9 7
2018	Hosemann, J, Herrmann, A, Sennhenn-Reulen, H, Schlesewsky, M & Steinbach, M 2018, 'Agreement or no agreement. ERP correlates of verb agreement violation in German Sign Language', Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, vol. 33, no. 9, pp. 1107-1127. 6 3 1
2018	Volmer, B, Baumeister, J, Von Itzstein, S, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I, Schlesewsky, M, Billinghurst, M & Thomas, BH 2018, 'A comparison of predictive spatial augmented reality cues for procedural tasks', IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 24, no. 11, pp. 2846-2856. Open access 15 11
2018	Weiss, AF, Kretzschmar, F, Schlesewsky, M, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Staub, A 2018, 'Comprehension demands modulate re-reading, but not first-pass reading behavior', Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 198-210. Open access 18 17
2017	Alday, PM, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2017, 'Electrophysiology reveals the neural dynamics of naturalistic auditory language processing: Event- related potentials reflect continuous model updates', eNeuro, vol. 4, no. 6, article no. e0311-16.2017, pp. 1-19. Open access 25 26 7
2017	Blohm, S, Menninghaus, W & Schlesewsky, M 2017, 'Sentence-level effects of literary genre: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence', Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 8, article no. 1887, pp. 1-17. Open access 6 5 3
2017	Brilmayer, I, Sassenhagen, J, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Schlesewsky, M 2017, 'Domain-general neural correlates of dependency formation: Using complex tones to simulate language', Cortex, vol. 93, pp. 50-67. 3 4 2
2017	Kandylaki, KD, Henrich, K, Nagels, A, Kircher, T, Domahs, U, Schlesewsky, M, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Wiese, R 2017, 'Where is the beat? The neural correlates of lexical stress and rhythmical well-formedness in auditory story comprehension', Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, vol. 29, no 7, pp.1119-1131. 4 4 4
2016	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Schlesewsky, M 2016, 'The importance of linguistic typology for the neurobiology of language', Linguistic Typology, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 615-621. Open access 8 7
2016	Dröge, A, Fleischer, J, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID 2016, 'Neural mechanisms of sentence comprehension based on predictive processes and decision certainty: Electrophysiological evidence from non-canonical linearizations in a flexible word order language', Brain Research, vol. 1633, pp. 149-166. Open access 14 14 1
2016	Kandylaki, KD, Nagels, A, Tune, S, Kircher, T, Wiese, R, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2016, 'Predicting 'when' in discourse engages the human dorsal auditory stream: an fMRI study using naturalistic stories', Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 36, no. 48, pp. 12180-12191. Open access 17 15 6
2016	Tune, S, Schlesewsky, M, Nagels, A, Small, SL & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2016, 'Sentence understanding depends on contextual use of semantic and real world knowledge', NeuroImage, vol. 136, pp. 10-25. Open access 4 3 1
2015	Alday, PM, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2015, 'Discovering prominence and its role in language processing: an individual (differences) approach', Linguistics Vanguard, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 201-213. Open access 3
2015	Bickel, B, Witzlack-Makarevich, A, Choudhary, KK, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID 2015, 'The neurophysiology of language processing shapes the evolution of grammar: evidence from case marking', PLoS One, vol. 10, no. 8, article no. e0132819. Open access 36 34 61
2015	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I, Philipp, M, Alday, PM, Kretzschmar, F, Grewe, T, Gumpert, M, Schumacher, PB & Schlesewsky, M 2015, 'Age-related changes in predictive capacity versus internal model adaptability: electrophysiological evidence that individual differences outweigh effects of age', Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, vol. 7, article no. 217, pp. 1-13. Open access 12 12 1
2015	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I, Schlesewsky, M, Small, SL & Rauschecker, JP 2015, 'Neurobiological roots of language in primate audition : common computational properties', Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 142-150. Open access 115 110 14
2015	Frenzel, S, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2015, 'Two routes to actorhood: lexicalized potency to act and identification of the actor role', Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 6, article no. 1, pp. 1-21. Open access 9 9 2
2015	Muralikrishnan, R, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID 2015, 'Animacy-based predictions in language comprehension are robust: contextual cues modulate but do not nullify them', Brain Research, vol. 1608, pp. 108-137. 11 11
2015	Schlesewsky, M, Kretzschmar, F & Staub, A 2015, 'Dissociating word frequency and predictability effects in reading: evidence from coregistration of eye movements and EEG', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 1648-1662. Open access 40 35 4
2014	Alday, PM, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2014, 'Towards a computational model of actor-based language comprehension', NeuroInformatics, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 143-179. Open access 19 17
2014	Sassenhagen, J, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2014, 'The P600-as-P3 hypothesis revisited: Single-trial analyses reveal that the late EEG positivity following linguistically deviant material is reaction time aligned', Brain and Language, vol. 137, pp. 29-39. Open access 111 109 5
2013	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Schlesewsky, M 2013, 'Reconciling time, space and function: a new dorsal-ventral stream model of sentence comprehension', Brain and Language, vol. 125, no. 1, pp. 60-76. Open access 152 151 2
2013	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I, Krauspenhaar, S & Schlesewsky, M 2013, 'Yes, you can? A speaker's potency to act upon his words orchestrates early neural responses to message-level meaning', PLoS One, vol. 8, no. 7, article no. e69173, pp. 1-16. Open access 9 10 79
2013	Kretzschmar, F, Pleimling, D, Hosemann, J, Füssel, S, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Schlesewsky, M 2013, 'Subjective impressions do not mirror online reading effort: concurrent EEG-eyetracking evidence from the reading of books and digital media', PLoS One, vol. 8, no. 2, article no. e56178, pp. 1-11. Open access 76 56 171
2012	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I, Grewe, T & Schlesewsky, M 2012, 'Prominence vs. aboutness in sequencing: a functional distinction within the left inferior frontal gyrus', Brain and Language, vol. 120, no. 2, pp. 96-107. 19 19
2011	Frenzel, S, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2011, 'Conflicts in language processing: A new perspective on the N400-P600 distinction', Neuropsychologia, vol. 49 no. 3, pp. 574-579. 35 34
2011	Schlesewsky, M, Fanselow, G, Vogel, R & Weskott, T 2011, 'Animacy effects on crossing wh-movement in German', Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences, vol. 49, no. 4, pp. 657-683. Open access 5 7
2009	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID & Schlesewsky, M 2009, 'Minimality as vacuous distinctness: Evidence from cross-linguistic sentence comprehension', Lingua, vol. 110, no. 10, pp. 1541-1559. 15 13
2009	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID & Schlesewsky, M 2009, 'The role of prominence information in the real-time comprehension of transitive constructions: A cross-linguistic approach', Language and Linguistics Compass, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 19-58. 146 82
2009	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID, Schlesewsky, M & Cramon, D 2009, 'Word order and Broca's region: Evidence for a supra-syntactic perspective', Brain and Language, vol. 111, no. 3, pp. 125-139. 41 39
2009	Choudhary, K, Schlesewsky, M, Roehm, D & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID 2009, 'The N400 as a correlate of interpretively relevant linguistic rules: Evidence from Hindi', Neuropsychologia, vol. 47 no. 13, pp. 3012-3022. 43
2009	Kretzschmar, F, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID & Schlesewsky, M 2009, 'Parafoveal versus foveal N400s dissociate spreading activation from contextual fit', NeuroReport, vol. 20 no. 18, pp. 1613-1618. 54
2009	Schlesewsky, M 2009, 'Linguistic data from experimental environments: A multi-experimental and multimodal perspective', Zeitschrift fuer Sprachwissenschaft. Open access 7 4
2009	Schlesewsky, M, Domahs, U, Kehrein, W, Knaus, J & Wiese, R 2009, 'Event-related potentials reflecting the processing of phonological constraint violations', Language and Speech. Open access 23 23
2009	Wang, L, Schlesewsky, M, Bickel, B & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID 2009, 'Exploring the nature of the 'subject'-preference: Evidence from the online comprehension of simple sentences in Mandarin Chinese', Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, vol. 24 no. 7-8, pp. 1180-1226. 37
2008	Bai, C, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID, Wang, L, Hung, Y, Schlesewsky, M & Burkhardt, P 2008, 'Semantic composition engenders an N400: Evidence from Chinese compounds', NeuroReport, vol. 19 no. 6, pp. 695-699. 19
2008	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID & Schlesewsky, M 2008, 'An alternative perspective on 'semantic P600' effects in language comprehension', Brain Research Reviews, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 55-73. 244 237
2008	Demiral, S, Schlesewsky, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID 2008, 'On the universality of language comprehension strategies: Evidence from Turkish', Cognition, vol. 106, no. 1, pp. 484-500. 42 37
2008	Domahs, U, Wiese, R, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I & Schlesewsky, M 2008, 'The processing of German word stress: evidence for the prosodic hierarchy', Phonology, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 1-36. 53 53
2008	Haupt, F, Schlesewsky, M, Roehm, D, Friederici, A & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, ID 2008, 'The status of subject-object reanalyses in the language comprehension architecture', Journal of Memory and Language, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 54-96. 80 80
2008	Philipp, M, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I, Bisang, W & Schlesewsky, M 2008, 'The role of animacy in the real time comprehension of Mandarin Chinese: Evidence from auditory event-related brain potentials', Brain and Language, vol. 105 no. 2, pp. 112-133. 51
2008	Wolff, S, Schlesewsky, M, Hirotani, M & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I 2008, 'The neural mechanisms of word order processing revisited: Electrophysiological evidence from Japanese', Brain and Language, vol. 107 no. 2, pp. 133-157. 70 73

Reports

Year	Output
2021	Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I, Cross, Z, Chatburn, A & Schlesewsky, M 2021, Enhancing human performance in complex environments (extension project): final report, Defence Science and Technology, Australia.

External engagement & recognition

Collaborations

External engagement & recognition

Collaborations

Organisation	Country
Bielefeld University	GERMANY
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano	ITALY
Fresenius University of Applied Sciences	GERMANY
Georgetown University	UNITED STATES
Georgetown University Medical Center	UNITED STATES
Goethe University Frankfurt	GERMANY
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine	UNITED KINGDOM
Indian Institute of Technology Ropar	INDIA
Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz	GERMANY
Karolinska Institute	SWEDEN
Leibniz Institute for Primate Research	GERMANY
Libera Universita di Bolzano	ITALY
Max Planck Institute	GERMANY
Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics	GERMANY
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences	GERMANY
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics	NETHERLANDS
Monash University	AUSTRALIA
Shaanxi Normal University	CHINA
Third Military Medical University	CHINA
Universitat Potsdam	GERMANY
University of Amsterdam	NETHERLANDS
University of California	UNITED STATES
University of Cologne	GERMANY
University of Gottingen	GERMANY
University of Hamburg	GERMANY
University of Kiel	GERMANY
University of Lubeck	GERMANY
University of Marburg	GERMANY
University of Massachusetts Amherst	UNITED STATES
University of Melbourne	AUSTRALIA
University of Salzburg	AUSTRIA
University of South Australia	AUSTRALIA
University of York	UNITED KINGDOM
University of Zurich	SWITZERLAND
Western Sydney University	AUSTRALIA

External engagement & recognition

Engagement/recognition	Year
Editorial (advisory) board member Brain and Language	2015
Editorial (advisory) board member Trends in Linguistics (Mouton de Gruyter)	2015
Member Society for the Neurobiology of Language	2015
Editorial (advisory) board member Brain and Language	2014
Editorial (advisory) board member Trends in Linguistics (Mouton de Gruyter)	2014
Member German Linguistics Society	2014

Teaching & student supervision

Research degree supervision

Supervisions from 2010 shown

Thesis title	Student status
Brain-mechanisms of context-specific adaptation in ecologically valid multi-modal settings	Current
Investigating aperiodic neural characteristics: evidence for a neurophysiological indicator of information processing and performance	Current
On the ‘Same Page’: an exploration of shared mental model development, neurosynchrony and the effects of collaborative scripts in virtual teams.	Current
Pre-stimulus neural correlates of prediction: An investigation of individual differences in information processing	Current
Real-time brain-based metrics of listener engagement and depth of comprehension	Current
The role of sleep in facilitating the generalization of information across sensory modalities	Current
Spatial augmented reality predictive cues for improving task performance and reducing mental effort	Completed

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Professor Matthias Schlesewsky

About me

About me

UniSA Justice & Society

About me

Professional Associations

Experience

Qualifications

Research

Research focus

Highlights

Projects

Outputs

Chapters

Journal Articles

Reports

Current research & highlights

External engagement & recognition

Collaborations

Collaborations

External engagement & recognition

Editorial (advisory) board member

Editorial (advisory) board member

Member

Editorial (advisory) board member

Editorial (advisory) board member

Member

Teaching & student supervision

Courses and programs

Courses I teach and/or co-ordinate

Research degree supervision

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