Self-paced Reading Experiments Research Articles

Dead or Alive: A Lifetime Effect of Pomak Nominal Tense in a Self-Paced Reading Experiment

Nominal tense is a cross-linguistically rare and understudied phenomenon, with past vs. non-past being the minimal distinction. In some languages, past nominal tense implies the reading ‘deceased’, while in others, lifetime effects (i.e., implicatures about whether an individual is dead or alive) restrict its use with permanent properties (as with kinship terms). In our study, we investigate for the first time the online processing of lifetime effects in sentences with past nominal tense and kinship terms following contextual information about an individual’s lifetime status (dead or alive). An end-of-sentence acceptability judgment task completes the study. Evidence comes from 25 speakers of Pomak (Slavic, Greece) who use the realis past suffix to form, among others, definite articles, contrasting with a generic suffix for the future, habitual, and irrealis. In collaboration with a local Pomak research assistant, we prepared 80 experimental sentences with past nominal tense in four conditions, manipulating Lifetime Status (dead × alive) and Tense Concord between nominal and verbal tense/aspect (congruent × incongruent). Our results suggest that past nominal tense with kinship terms triggers a lifetime effect which is apparent during online processing. In the sentence final region, dead referents with future verbal tense are read faster, possibly due to the overtness and severity of the violation. Reading disruptions for dead referents while processing nominal tense are also discussed. In the acceptability task, participants rated sentences only based on the agreement of the lifetime status with verbal tense/aspect as the violation is overt and severe. The present study therefore offers support to previous reports of lifetime effects in other languages with nominal tense, highlighting another similarity between nominal and verbal tense.

The processing and interpretation of sich in German as a second language by Japanese and Korean learners

Abstract This study investigates the processing and interpretation of the reflexive pronoun sich by Japanese and Korean learners of German as a second language. This is explored through the emergentist reflexivity approach, which hypothesizes that these learners will utilize their first language pragmatic strategies to bind sich, instead of syntactic binding found in German. Employing psycholinguistic methodology, a self-paced reading experiment is undertaken, utilizing antecedent judgements and introspective measures. The results show that instead of using the pertinent German syntax to bind sich, the learners continue to fall under the influence of their first language pragmatics. These results are discussed against the larger picture of reflexive theory, showing how German as a second language can advance our understanding of reflexivity.

Processing Chinese object-topicalization structures in simple and complex sentences

Abstract Chinese has the basic word order of Subject-Verb-Object (SVO), yet it is also known as a topic-prominent language, where an object can be topicalized from within a relative clause as well as from a main clause. In parsing Topic-Subject-Verb (TSV) structures, will a Chinese comprehender have difficulties in recognizing the second noun phrase (NP2) as the subject and in integrating the initial topic noun with the verb? Experience/surprisal-based theories and memory-based theories make testable predications at the NP2 and critically, at the verb. Focusing on these two regions in three self-paced reading experiments, we compared reading time patterns between TSVs and canonical SVOs in simple or complex sentences. Converging evidence showed processing costs at or prior to the NP2 in TSVs compared to SVOs, but no retrieval or integration costs at the verb regardless of dependency lengths. Our results are not predicted by memory-based theories, but are consistent with the predictions of experience/surprisal-based theories, suggesting that Chinese TSV processing is guided by structural frequencies and a universal subject-reading bias, with completion of dependency between topic and the verb (or empty category) likely to be fundamentally semantic.

Incremental Discourse-Update Constrains Number Agreement Attraction Effect.

While a large body of work in sentence comprehension has explored how different types of linguistic information are used to guide syntactic parsing, less is known about the effect of discourse structure. This study investigates this question, focusing on the main and subordinate discourse contrast manifested in the distinction between restrictive relative clauses (RRCs) and appositive relative clauses (ARCs) in American English. In three self-paced reading experiments, we examined whether both RRCs and ARCs interfere with the matrix clause content and give rise to the agreement attraction effect. While the standard attraction effect was consistently observed in the baseline RRC structures, the effect varied in the ARC structures. These results collectively suggest that discourse structure indeed constrains syntactic dependency resolution. Most importantly, we argue that what is at stake is not the static discourse structure properties at the global sentence level. Instead, attention should be given to the incremental update of the discourse structure in terms of which discourse questions are active at any given moment of a discourse. The current findings have implications for understanding the way discourse structure, specifically the active state of discourse questions, constrains memoryretrieval.

Searching for Semantic Distance Effects

Language processing relies on memory. There exists a considerable body of literature on retrieval in sentence processing and, in particular, on cases involving recall of syntax-relevant information. There is no reason to doubt, however, that memory is involved in semantic aspects of language processing as well. In this work, we look at the case of additive presuppositions, such as those involved in interpreting the additive particle too. When one hears Mary went to the party, too, one should recall that someone other than Mary went to the party. We make the case that, as a starting hypothesis, it would be expected that the retrieval of this kind of information should share basic features of memory processes in language with the better-known cases of recall involved in syntactic parsing. In particular, we argue that, given certain assumptions and linking hypotheses, all prominent retrieval theories predict the existence of distance effects for the recall of previous information, independent of whether the recall is driven by syntactic or semantic, sentential or inter-sentential, considerations. As the distance increases, so does the difficulty of processing. We test this prediction in four experiments that investigate the role of retrieval in interpreting too. Using the Bayesian hierarchical modelling paradigm, we find evidence in two self-paced reading experiments that it takes more time to read sentences with too when the distance between the trigger and its antecedent is greater, compared to a baseline that lacks the presupposition trigger. This result shows that theories of the role of memory in language are just as relevant to the domain of discourse interpretation as they are to syntactic parsing. The fact that our evidence was relatively hard to find, however, suggests additionally that there are interesting differences to explore in the future.

What I Can Do with the Right Version of You: The Impact of Narrative Perspective on Reader Immersion, and How (in)Formal Address Pronouns Influence Immersion Reports

Previous research has shown that readers experience stronger immersion while reading first-person narratives than third-person narratives, but whether this difference in processing is time-sensitive remains unclear. We report on a self-paced reading experiment in which French participants read short stories in first and in third person. Additionally, participants were directly addressed with either formal or informal second-person pronouns in the final sentence of the narrative, as well as in a subsequent (off-line) questionnaire soliciting post-story immersion reports. The suitability of a particular pronoun of address depends on the social context, and misplaced use can impact the way in which people perceive and assess a particular situation. We did not find significant differences between reading times with first- or third-person pronouns, but participants reported higher immersion and emotional engagement after reading first-person stories than third-person stories. Moreover, the effect of story perspective on reported immersion only occurred when participants were addressed with formal second-person pronouns. We take these findings as evidence for an effect of first- versus third-person pronouns on immersion via perspective shifts. Moreover, we argue that the effect of being addressed with an unexpected (in this case, informal) pronoun can overrule such an effect, while being addressed with an expected (in this case, formal) pronoun can be conducive of it. This finding highlights the importance of research into the impact of pronouns of address.

Online evidence for pseudo-relative effects on Italian RC attachment resolution

ABSTRACT This study investigates the resolution of relative clause attachment ambiguities, focussing on the availability of Pseudo-Relative Small Clauses (PRs) in Italian. The PR-first hypothesis posits that, when controlling for other factors, PRs are preferred over relative clauses due to their structural simplicity, leading to an apparent preference for “high attachment” in PR-licensing languages. Through a self-paced reading experiment, this study examines how PR availability affects ambiguity resolution in Italian, and how it interacts with locality principles during online sentence processing. We find a significant slowdown in the LA condition with PR-licensing verbs, also tied to lower comprehension accuracy, and unclear evidence for an advantage of LA in non-PR contexts. Overall, our results add support to the PR-first hypothesis for Italian, while opening new questions about the interplay of structural ambiguity, locality, and language-specific properties.

Machine Translation for Open Scholarly Communication: Examining the Relationship between Translation Quality and Reading Effort

This study assesses the usability of machine-translated texts in scholarly communication, using self-paced reading experiments with texts from three scientific disciplines, translated from French into English and vice versa. Thirty-two participants, proficient in the target language, participated. This study uses three machine translation engines (DeepL, ModernMT, OpenNMT), which vary in translation quality. The experiments aim to determine the relationship between translation quality and readers’ reception effort, measured by reading times. The results show that for two disciplines, manual and automatic translation quality measures are significant predictors of reading time. For the most technical discipline, this study could not build models that outperformed the baseline models, which only included participant and text ID as random factors. This study acknowledges the need to include reader-specific features, such as prior knowledge, in future research.

Covariation in processing: grammar vs. context

In addition to referential uses, pronouns can have covarying interpretations, i.e., exhibit the behavior of a bound variable. The grammatical mechanism(s) behind such readings have been subject to longstanding debates: Some authors argue for a fairly flexible but unified semantic mechanism that is not tied closely to syntactic configurations. Others distinguish a core class of bona fidebinding with tight syntactic constraints from other mechanisms that give rise to ultimately parallel effects, but do so more indirectly. Psycholinguistic work has started to uncover the processing mechanisms involved in evaluating dependencies between covarying pronouns and (candidate) antecedents. Moulton and Han (2018) leverage the processing perspective to try to shed light on the theoretical question of what grammatical mechanism is at play for a given covarying pronoun. They argue that so-called Gender Mismatch Effects only arise for cases of bona fide binding, supporting the existence of distinct grammatical mechanisms. However, Kush and Eik (2019), looking at another construction involving the relevant other covariation mechanisms, do find Gender Mismatch Effects. These authors suggest that various contextual factors can make a covarying interpretation harder to obtain, and they propose adjustments to Moulton and Han’s stimuli that they think should lead to fast Gender Mismatch Effects even when no bona fide binding is involved. A series of self-paced reading experiments replicate the results from Moulton and Han, and then extend the paradigm to variations along the lines suggested by Kush and Eik. The adjustment of contextual factors indeed results in Gender Mismatch Effects for both environments. We discuss how the processing evidence informs the theoretical issues.  

Music training influences online temporal order processing during reading comprehension

Numerous studies have demonstrated the influence of musical expertise on spoken language processing; however, its effects on reading comprehension remain largely unexplored. This study aims to investigate the role of musical expertise in sentence comprehension, particularly concerning the processing of temporal order. Using two self-paced reading experiments, we examined individuals' responses to two-clause sentences connected by the temporal connectives “before” or “after”. “After” sentences consistently presented events in their actual order of temporal occurrence, while “before” sentences described events in reverse temporal order. In both experiments, our analyses of reading times consistently uncovered a significant temporal order effect, with words immediately following the temporal connectives being processed slower in “before” sentences compared to “after” sentences. This suggests the presence of immediate online processing costs associated with “before” sentences. Notably, these processing costs were found to be attenuated in individuals with musical expertise compared to those without. However, analyses of comprehension accuracy showed no advantage of musicians over non-musicians. Specifically, in Experiment 1, the two groups showed no difference in comprehension accuracy, while in Experiment 2, musicians exhibited lower accuracy rates compared to non-musicians in both “before” and “after” sentences. These results suggest that musical expertise may attenuate online processing costs associated with complex linguistic constructs, but could not promote reading accuracy. We concluded that music training is associated with a restricted effect on written sentence comprehension.

Investigating the role of case markers in honorific agreement processing in Korean

This study explores the influence of case markers on the attraction effect in subject-verb honorific agreement in Korean. Using a self-paced reading experiment on PCIbex Farm, we manipulated case markers (possessive vs. nominative) and the presence of the honorific marker -si on verbs to assess their impact on the attraction effect, where syntactically illicit NPs are erroneously retrieved due to partial feature matching. While Avetisyan et al. (2020) reported that in Armenian, case information is used as a retrieval cue during subject-verb number agreement, our preliminary findings reveal no significant attraction effect related to case marker similarity, indicating that the case features (nominative case) do not crucially trigger the attraction effect in honorific agreement. The discrepancy with previous studies highlights the role of noun animacy and the specific construction of Korean sentence structure. Our results contribute to understanding the nuanced factors influencing honorific agreement processing in Korean and suggest that case marking, while integral to sentence structure, does not significantly affect the attraction effect in honorific agreement processing.

The spontaneous activities of the multiple demand network are related to individual differences in indirect replies comprehension

This study aims to investigate the brain networks engaged in the comprehension of indirect language, as well as the individual difference in this capacity. Specially, we aim to determine whether the difference is solely influenced by the difference in individuals’ default network (DN)/language network or whether it also relies on the networks associated with processing of complex cognitive tasks, particularly the multiple demand network (MDN). Conversational indirectness scale (CIS) scores in the interpretation dimension were used as a behavioral indicator of the indirect comprehension tendency. Reading time difference between indirect replies and direct replies collected through a self-paced reading experiment was deemed as a behavioral indicator of comprehension speed of indirect replies comprehension. The two behavioral indicators were combined with resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). The behaviour-rfMRI analysis showed that ALFF value of right SPL and the functional connectivity (FC) between the right SPL and right IPL/SMA/ITG/Precuneus/bilateral IFG were positively correlated with the interpretation dimension of CIS scores. In addition, the ALFF value of right fusiform gyrus, the FC between the right fusiform gyrus and right precuneus, and the FCs between right SPL and right IPL/Precuneus/IFG were negatively correlated with indirect replies comprehension speed. Overlapping of these regions with large-scale brain network revealed that the right SPL was mainly located in the MDN, and the right fusiform gyrus was mainly located in the language network. Additionally, the areas showing functional connectivity with these regions were primarily located in the MDN, with a smaller subset located in the DN. Our findings suggest that the ability of individuals to actively and rapidly acquire indirect meaning relies not only on the support of the DN and the language network, but also requires collective support from the MDN.

Agreement attraction in grammatical sentences and the role of the task

This study evaluates two broad classes of language processing accounts that make predictions for sentences like “The admirer of the singer(s) apparently thinks...”. Feature distortion accounts predict increased processing difficulty at the verb in sentences with a plural distractor noun (singers) while similarity-based interference accounts predict the opposite: increased difficulty in sentences with a singular distractor noun (singer). Neither of these effects was reliably observed in earlier research, and the Bayesian meta-analysis of 31 published studies reported here is almost perfectly inconclusive. An explanation may be that both effects occur simultaneously and therefore mask each other. To test this idea, we conducted three single-trial self-paced reading experiments (N1=4,296, N2=3,920, N3=3,559) which orthogonally manipulated agreement attraction and inhibitory interference. Surprisingly, all three experiments produced evidence for agreement attraction but none for inhibitory interference, which supports feature distortion but not similarity-based interference accounts. Experiment 4 (N4=3,535) tested the role of the expected task by preparing participants for a comprehension question (vs. acceptability judgment in Experiments 1–3). It showed neither agreement attraction nor inhibitory interference effects. Our findings demonstrate that agreement attraction effects can arise in grammatical sentences – contra earlier research – but also that these effects crucially depend on the task. This explains inconsistent results in prior research and supports feature distortion as the driving force behind attraction effects in grammatical sentences.

The processing of Russian Idioms in Heritage Russian Speakers and L2 Russian Learners

The use of idioms differentiates native speakers (NSs) from second language (L2) learners, whereas the use of idioms by heritage speakers (HSs) might resemble both groups at the same time. This study examines the processing of idioms in heritage Russian speakers (N = 16) and L2 Russian learners (N = 16), comparing them to Russian native speakers as a control group (N = 23). Heritage speakers acquire Russian similarly to the first language acquisition in their family. This enables them to have a more natural approach to language than L2 learners. However, heritage speakers are also similar to L2 learners since their Russian language competence is still not native-like due to insufficient language input. To test whether idiom processing in HSs resembles that of L2 learners or rather in NSs, we conducted a self-paced reading experiment. The idioms were divided into three categories based on the cross-language influence factor: having full English equivalents, semi-equivalents, or no-equivalents. Our findings show no significant difference in idiom processing in HSs and L2 learners, whereas their processing significantly differed from that by NSs of Russian. Also, we found different processing for full and semi-equivalent idioms (in the HS and L2 groups). Full and no-equivalent idioms were also processed differently in all the three groups.

The representation of agreement features in memory is updated during sentence processing: Evidence from verb-reflexive interactions

The formation of linguistic dependencies is subject to memory interference. In this study, we ask whether memory representations are fixed, or whether they can be distorted and updated after their initial encoding. Models of Cue-Based Retrieval assume that memory representations are fixed. However, representational interference and rational inference models assume that memory contents can be edited. To examine this, we test how reflexive attraction is affected by preceding verbal agreement in Hebrew. Cue-Based Retrieval suggests that agreement on the verb can exaggerate the reflexive’s sensitivity to the distractor. In contrast, we propose that if memory representations can be edited, verbal agreement can alter the representation of the subject. This process would reduce vulnerability to distortions originating from the distractor. In two self-paced reading experiments and one forced-choice completion we find (i) decreased reflexive attraction when (grammatical or ungrammatical) agreement cues were available on the preceding verb; and (ii) a preference for reflexive forms matching the verb over forms matching the subject when the sentence included ungrammatical verbal agreement. These results suggest that comprehenders use featural information from the verb to recover properties of the subject. The findings are therefore consistent with a memory model where representations can be distorted and updated, as well as with rational inference about memory disruption.

Who shot whom? psycholinguistic processing of syntacticambiguity in l2 and the role of cognitive control: a self-paced reading experiment literature

Who shot whom? psycholinguistic processing of syntacticambiguity in l2 and the role of cognitive control: a self-paced reading experiment literature

Vulnerability in processing definiteness: The case of heritage Turkish.

Definiteness has been argued to be difficult for language learners to acquire because the correct usage of definiteness requires the integration of external interfaces that involve linguistic and non-linguistic information. Previous offline studies with heritage speakers have constantly reported difficulties in the use of pragmatically appropriate definite forms. The current study aims to investigate the processing of definiteness in Turkish heritage speakers via a self-paced reading experiment and to compare heritage speakers' reading times and end-of-sentence acceptance percentage to monolingually-raised Turkish speakers. The results of the experiment indicate significant differences between the heritage and monolingually-raised Turkish speakers only in the end-of-sentence acceptance percentage data but not in the reading time data. This difference between the two groups suggests that Turkish heritage speakers perform differently from the monolingually-raised Turkish speakers only in indefinite-specific sentences when they have to use their metalinguistic knowledge. These results show that heritage speakers experience vulnerability/difficulty when they have to integrate external interfaces in indefinite-specific sentences but not in definite-specific sentences.

Transitivity and non-uniform subjecthood in agreement attraction.

Research on human language converges on a view in which a grammatical "subject" is the most saliently encoded entity in mental representation. However, subjecthood is not a syntactically uniform phenomenon. Notably, many languages encode morphological distinctions between subjects of transitive verbs (i.e., verbs that require an object) and subjects of intransitive verbs. We ask how this typological pattern manifests in a language like English (which does not morphologically signal it) by examining the "distinctiveness" of transitive versus intransitive subjects in memory during online sentence processing. We conducted a self-paced reading experiment that tested for "attraction" effects (Dillon et al., Journal of Memory and Language, 69(2), 85-103, 2013; Wagers et al., Journal of Memory and Language, 61, 206-237, 2009) in the processing of subject-verb number agreement. We find that transitive subjects trigger attraction effects, but that these effects are mitigated for intransitive subject attractors (independently of the number of other noun phrases present in the intervening clause). We interpret this as indicating that transitive subjects are less distinctive and therefore less representationally salient than intransitive subjects: This is because a transitive subject must compete with another clause-mate core argument (i.e., a direct object), which draws on resources from the same pool of memory resources. On the other hand, an intransitive subject minimally only competes with a non-core argument (i.e., an oblique noun phrase); this consumes fewer memory resources, leaving the subject to enjoy greater spoils.

Pre-verb reactivation of arguments in sentence processing

Major models of sentence comprehension assume that a verb triggers retrieval of preceding thematic arguments from memory to establish argument-verb dependencies. If so, longer argument-verb distance should lead to higher processing load at the verb (a locality effect),since the representation of the argument should suffer from decay and/or interference.However, verb-final languages have often failed to show the expected argument-verb locality effect. A possible account of the lack of the effect is that arguments and adjuncts before the verb reactivate each other, counteracting memory degradation. In a pair of self-paced reading experiments in Japanese, a verb-final language, we found evidence of such pre-verb reactivation.Specifically, there was a locality effect and a similarity-based interference effect at the head of the adverbial that follows the subject, both of which suggest the retrieval of the subject at that point. The results are difficult to accommodate with other accounts of the lack of locality effect, such as a confounding effect of expectation and the inherent locality-insensitivity of verb-final languages. It is further argued that the constructivist analysis of verbal argument structure, which has been developed in generative syntax, provides an explanation for why such pre-verb reactivation takes place. 

Does the processing advantage of formulaic language persist in its nonadjacent forms? Evidence from Chinese collocation processing in children

Recent studies have accumulated to suggest that children, akin to adults, exhibit a processing advantage for formulaic language (e.g. save energy) over novel language (e.g. sell energy), as well as sensitivity to phrase frequencies. The majority of these studies are based on formulaic sequences in their canonical form. In natural language use, however, many formulaic sequences, collocations in particular, can be modified with words intervening in between the individual constituents (e.g. save energy → save all forms of energy). For some collocations, their nonadjacent forms are equally, and even more frequently used than their adjacent form. Despite this, it remains almost unknown whether the processing advantage and sensitivity to phrase frequencies persist in nonadjacent collocations in children. Based on reading times in a self-paced reading experiment, the current study found that two age groups – third and sixth graders – exhibited a processing advantage for Chinese collocations and sensitivity to phrase frequencies, with two and even four Chinese characters inserted in the middle. The persistence of processing advantage and sensitivity was affected by insertion length as well as age. These results are in line with a usage-based theoretical approach to language learning, processing and use.