Self-paced Reading Task Research Articles

Priming Effect on Automatisation of L2 Prepositional-Phrase Processing Ability

<p><em>Most L2 learners cannot process a second language as native speakers do because of their less automatic syntactic processing ability. In this article, the author reports two experiments that used a word-by-word self-paced reading task to examine how Japanese language learners of English process English prepositional phrases. The study also examined whether these learners could improve their syntactic processing ability, using the priming method. The research findings showed that while L2 learners had more difficulty processing a prepositional phrase when it modified the noun of the matrix verb than modified the verb, they were able to overcome that difficulty with appropriate primes. The research findings indicated that L2 learners were able to improve their syntactic processing ability if they encountered the same syntactic structure repeatedly.</em><em></em></p>

Sensitivity to verb-argument anomalies in aphasia is driven by event knowledge

Sensitivity to verb-argument anomalies in aphasia is driven by event knowledge

L2 Learners’ English Prepositional-Phrase Processing with Consideration of L2 Proficiency and Word Familiarity: A mixed-effect Analysis

L2 Learners’ English Prepositional-Phrase Processing with Consideration of L2 Proficiency and Word Familiarity: A mixed-effect Analysis Hiroki FUJITA Abstract A considerable number of studies have hitherto examined how native speakers and second language (hereafter L1 and L2, respectively) learners of English process English prepositional phrases. It is usually thought that both L1 and L2 speakers have a preference for verb phrase modification (e.g., The boy broke the old window with a ball of snow.) over noun phrase modification (e.g., The boy broke the old window with a view of snow.). However, little research has attempted to reveal how non-structural factors interact with L2 learners’ prepositional phrase processing. In this study, I examined whether L2 learners’ syntactic processing preference for prepositional-phrase attachment was affected by their L2 proficiency and word familiarity with reading time data obtained from the word-by-word self-paced reading task. In addition, the possibility that L2 syntactic priming is influenced by such non-syntactic factors was also investigated. The research results showed that L2 learners’ prepositional-phrase processing and syntactic priming were not subject to those factors, indicating that in prepositional phrases, there was no interaction between L2 learners’ syntactic processing and those non-syntactic elements. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jehd.v5n1a10

Re-assembling objects: a new look at the L2 acquisition of pronominal clitics

We test the predictions of the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (FRH) as applied to the L2 acquisition of French pronominal clitics by Anglophone learners, capitalizing on the fact that different semantic and morphosyntactic features are lexically encoded by French and English pronouns. A picture selection task and a self-paced reading task examine how the information encoded in the L2 forms affects off-line and on-line pronoun interpretation. Our findings suggest that the initial L1–L2 mapping was indeed influenced by the L1. Nevertheless, L2 learners successfully reassembled features into L2 bundles, as evidenced by target-like off-line performance. L2 reading time patterns, however, indicate that L1 representations may have a longer-lasting impact: learners’ reactions to the mismatching input followed a different pattern and were slightly delayed as compared to native speakers’. These results are in line with the FRH, which conceptualizes L1 influence as the transfer of atomic linguistic features and their combinations.

Specificity of Emotion Inferences as a Function of Emotional Contextual Support

Research on emotion inferences has shown that readers include a representation of the main character's emotional state in their mental representations of the text. We examined the specificity of emotion representations as a function of the emotion content of short narratives, in terms of the quantity and quality of emotion components included in the narratives, based on the GRID instrument (Fontaine, Scherer, Roesch, & Ellsworth, 2007; Fontaine, Scherer, & Soriano, 2013; Scherer, 2005). In a self-paced reading task, target sentences that only moderately matched the emotional context were read faster than target sentences that strongly matched the emotional context of the narratives. In a “makes sense” judgment task, we showed that this result was not driven by a mapping difficulty, and in a memory task, we provided some evidence that these effects reflected integration processes. We suggest that readers can integrate specific emotions into their mental representations, but only if provided with the appropriate emotional contextual support.

Language and Memory Improvements following tDCS of Left Lateral Prefrontal Cortex.

Recent research demonstrates that performance on executive-control measures can be enhanced through brain stimulation of lateral prefrontal regions. Separate psycholinguistic work emphasizes the importance of left lateral prefrontal cortex executive-control resources during sentence processing, especially when readers must override early, incorrect interpretations when faced with temporary ambiguity. Using transcranial direct current stimulation, we tested whether stimulation of left lateral prefrontal cortex had discriminate effects on language and memory conditions that rely on executive-control (versus cases with minimal executive-control demands, even in the face of task difficulty). Participants were randomly assigned to receive Anodal, Cathodal, or Sham stimulation of left lateral prefrontal cortex while they (1) processed ambiguous and unambiguous sentences in a word-by-word self-paced reading task and (2) performed an n-back memory task that, on some trials, contained interference lure items reputed to require executive-control. Across both tasks, we parametrically manipulated executive-control demands and task difficulty. Our results revealed that the Anodal group outperformed the remaining groups on (1) the sentence processing conditions requiring executive-control, and (2) only the most complex n-back conditions, regardless of executive-control demands. Together, these findings add to the mounting evidence for the selective causal role of left lateral prefrontal cortex for executive-control tasks in the language domain. Moreover, we provide the first evidence suggesting that brain stimulation is a promising method to mitigate processing demands encountered during online sentence processing.

The thematic hierarchy in sentence comprehension: A study on the interaction between verb class and word order in Spanish.

Linking is the theory that captures the mapping of the semantic roles of lexical arguments to the syntactic functions of the phrases that realize them. At the sentence level, linking allows us to understand "who did what to whom" in an event. In Spanish, linking has been shown to interact with word order, verb class, and case marking. The current study aims to provide the first piece of experimental evidence about the interplay between word order and verb type in Spanish. We achieve this by adopting role and reference grammar and the extended argument dependency model. Two different types of clauses were examined in a self-paced reading task: clauses with object-experiencer psychological verbs and activity verbs. These types of verbs differ in the way that their syntactic and semantic structures are linked, and thus they provide interesting evidence on how information that belongs to the syntax-semantics interface might influence the predictive and integrative processes of sentence comprehension with alternative word orders. Results indicate that in Spanish, comprehension and processing speed is enhanced when the order of the constituents in the sentence mirrors their ranking on a semantic hierarchy that encodes a verb's lexical semantics. Moreover, results show that during online comprehension, predictive mechanisms based on argument hierarchization are used rapidly to inform the processing system. Our findings corroborate already existing cross-linguistic evidence on the issue and are briefly discussed in the light of other sentence-processing models.

The influences of proficiency levels and working memory capacities on sentence comprehension by Japanese learners of English

Examining influences of two participant factors, i.e., proficiency and working memory (WM), in second language (L2) sentence processing, we discuss how Japanese learners of English (JLEs) with distinct proficiency levels and WM capacities comprehend relative clauses in English. Reading times (RTs) were collected from intermediate and elementary levels of JLEs with different WM capacities using a self-paced reading task. The results revealed that: (1) JLEs had difficulty interpreting object relative clauses with animate antecedents; (2) JLEs at the elementary level processed the critical region in subject relative clauses with animate antecedents faster than that in object relative clauses with animate antecedents; (3) JLEs with the large WM capacity read embedded verbs faster than those with the small WM capacity; and (4) RTs of the verb region in the subject relative clause were shorter than those in the object relative clause. From these results, we propose that lower proficient L2 learners depend heavily on animacy information when they comprehend relative clauses though there appears evidence that JLEs also make use of structural information. Moreover, we suggest that WM has a positive role in the L2 comprehension process, similar to findings in previous L2 processing studies.

Psycholinguistic Evidence for Inverse Scope in Korean.

We use experimental data to shed light on the ongoing question of whether Korean allows inverse scope interpretation in sentences containing an indefinite subject and a universally quantified direct object (e.g., 'Someone bought each loaf of bread at the bakery'). The results of an off-line acceptability judgment task (n=38) and an online self-paced reading task (n[Formula: see text]22) indicate that inverse scope interpretations are in fact permitted in Korean as a secondary option, as is also the case in English. We argue that the dispreference for the inverse scope reading reflects processing considerations related to burden on working memory.

Children's comprehension monitoring of multiple situational dimensions of a narrative.

Narratives typically consist of information on multiple aspects of a situation. In order to successfully create a coherent representation of the described situation, readers are required to monitor all these situational dimensions during reading. However, little is known about whether these dimensions differ in the ease with which they can be monitored. In the present study, we examined whether children in Grades 4 and 6 monitor four different dimensions (i.e., emotion, causation, time, and space) during reading, using a self-paced reading task containing inconsistencies. Furthermore, to explore what causes failure in inconsistency detection, we differentiated between monitoring processes related to availability and validation of information by manipulating the distance between two pieces of conflicting information. The results indicated that the monitoring processes varied as a function of dimension. Children were able to validate emotional and causal information when it was still active in working memory, but this was not the case for temporal and spatial information. When context and target information were more distant from each other, only emotionally charged information remained available for further monitoring processes. These findings show that the influence of different situational dimensions should be taken into account when studying children’s reading comprehension.

Collecting psycholinguistic response time data using Amazon mechanical Turk.

Researchers in linguistics and related fields have recently begun exploiting online crowd-sourcing tools, like Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), to gather behavioral data. While this method has been successfully validated for various offline measures—grammaticality judgment or other forced-choice tasks—its use for mainstream psycholinguistic research remains limited. This is because psycholinguistic effects are often dependent on relatively small differences in response times, and there remains some doubt as to whether precise timing measurements can be gathered over the web. Here we show that three classic psycholinguistic effects can in fact be replicated using AMT in combination with open-source software for gathering response times client-side. Specifically, we find reliable effects of subject definiteness, filler-gap dependency processing, and agreement attraction in self-paced reading tasks using approximately the same numbers of participants and/or trials as similar laboratory studies. Our results suggest that psycholinguists can and should be taking advantage of AMT and similar online crowd-sourcing marketplaces as a fast, low-resource alternative to traditional laboratory research.

Working memory differences in long-distance dependency resolution.

There is a wealth of evidence showing that increasing the distance between an argument and its head leads to more processing effort, namely, locality effects; these are usually associated with constraints in working memory (DLT: Gibson, 2000; activation-based model: Lewis and Vasishth, 2005). In SOV languages, however, the opposite effect has been found: antilocality (see discussion in Levy et al., 2013). Antilocality effects can be explained by the expectation-based approach as proposed by Levy (2008) or by the activation-based model of sentence processing as proposed by Lewis and Vasishth (2005). We report an eye-tracking and a self-paced reading study with sentences in Spanish together with measures of individual differences to examine the distinction between expectation- and memory-based accounts, and within memory-based accounts the further distinction between DLT and the activation-based model. The experiments show that (i) antilocality effects as predicted by the expectation account appear only for high-capacity readers; (ii) increasing dependency length by interposing material that modifies the head of the dependency (the verb) produces stronger facilitation than increasing dependency length with material that does not modify the head; this is in agreement with the activation-based model but not with the expectation account; and (iii) a possible outcome of memory load on low-capacity readers is the increase in regressive saccades (locality effects as predicted by memory-based accounts) or, surprisingly, a speedup in the self-paced reading task; the latter consistent with good-enough parsing (Ferreira et al., 2002). In sum, the study suggests that individual differences in working memory capacity play a role in dependency resolution, and that some of the aspects of dependency resolution can be best explained with the activation-based model together with a prediction component.

Double object constructions in L3 English: An exploratory study of morphological and semantic constraints

The present study examines the acquisition of double object constructions (DOCs) (Susan gave Peter an apple) by 90 Basque/Spanish learners of English as a third language (L3). The aim of this study was to explore whether (i) learners established a distinction when accepting DOCs vs. prepositional phrase constructions (PPCs) (Susan gave an apple to Peter), (ii) they were sensitive to the morphological and semantic constraints found in English DOCs and (iii) proficiency effects could be observed. Results from a self-paced reading task and an auto-paced reading task showed that Basque/Spanish learners were more accurate in morphosyntactic properties than in semantic ones. Even though learners showed difficulties in both morphological and semantic constraints, these seem to be overcome by increasing proficiency.

L2 Influence on Korean-English Bilinguals’ L1 Syntactic Processing of Relative Clauses

This study examines L2 influence on L1 in processing Korean relative clause sentences from Korean-English in EFL context. Transfer patterns in processing ambiguous relative clauses were compared with those identified in Korean monolinguals. This study tests Linguistic Tuning, which posits that parsers’ initial analysis of an ambiguous construction is influenced by their previous encounters with ambiguities. This study aims to examine Linguistic Tuning to see whether bilinguals L2 parsing routines can be permeated into L1 comprehension. 17 Korean-English completed online self-paced reading task with ambiguous relative clauses in Korean. The results from reading time data revealed that showed a different processing pattern to Korean monolinguals. Given a prolonged L2 exposure in an L2 environment, bilinguals’ processing routines seem to be affected by L2 experiences, hence carrying L2 processing strategies to L1 processing. This study provides another piece of evidence for Dussias and Sagarra (2007) that permeability of L1 is a natural consequent of L2 exposure and L1 is likely to be influenced and to change.

Sentence Comprehension in Older Adults: Evidence for Risky Processing Strategies

Background/Study Context: Previous research has suggested that older adults compensate for age-related declines in sentence comprehension ability by reading more slowly. The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that older adults adopt a riskier strategy than younger adults, in which they rely on expectations based on probabilistic cues.Methods: Older and younger adults read late closure sentences in a self-paced reading task (e.g., “When the waiter served the woman the food was still too hot.”). The subordinate verbs varied in whether or not they occurred in ditransitive constructions (served vs. kissed).Results: Older adults showed less evidence of processing disruptions at the ambiguous noun phrase (the food) than younger adults. At the main verb, the older and younger adults showed evidence of processing disruption in the same conditions, but the processing disruptions were greater in older adults.Conclusion: The results are interpreted as support for the hypothesis that older adults adopt “risky” strategies during sentence comprehension.

Language switch costs in sentence comprehension depend on language dominance: Evidence from self-paced reading

This study investigated two prominent issues in the comprehension of language switches. First, how does language switching direction affect switch costs in sentence context? Second, are switch costs modulated by L2 proficiency and cross-linguistic activation? We conducted a self-paced reading task involving sentences that switched between participants’ L1 Dutch and L2 English. The cognate status of the main verb was manipulated to examine the influence of co-activation on intra-sentential switch costs. The reading times indicated the influence of switch direction: a cost was observed for switches into L2 but not for switches into L1, and the magnitude of the costs was correlated with L2 proficiency, indicating that switch costs in language comprehension depend on language dominance. Verb cognates did not yield a cognate facilitation effect nor did they influence the magnitude of switch costs in either direction. The results are interpreted in terms of an activation account explaining lexical comprehension based on L2 proficiency.

Animacy or Case Marker Order?: Priority Information for Online Sentence Comprehension in a Head-Final Language

It is well known that case marker information and animacy information are incrementally used to comprehend sentences in head-final languages. However, it is still unclear how these two kinds of information are processed when they are in competition in a sentence's surface expression. The current study used sentences conveying the potentiality of some event (henceforth, potential sentences) in the Japanese language with theoretically canonical word order (dative–nominative/animate–inanimate order) and with scrambled word order (nominative–dative/inanimate–animate order). In Japanese, nominative–first case order and animate–inanimate animacy order are preferred to their reversed patterns in simplex sentences. Hence, in these potential sentences, case information and animacy information are in competition. The experiment consisted of a self-paced reading task testing two conditions (that is, canonical and scrambled potential sentences). Forty-five native speakers of Japanese participated. In our results, the canonical potential sentences showed a scrambling cost at the second argument position (the nominative argument). This result indicates that the theoretically scrambled case marker order (nominative–dative) is processed as a mentally canonical case marker order, suggesting that case information is used preferentially over animacy information when the two are in competition. The implications of our findings are discussed with regard to incremental simplex sentence comprehension models for head-final languages.

Agreeing to Disagree: Deaf and Hearing Children's Awareness of Subject–Verb Number Agreement

This study investigated deaf adolescents' implicit and explicit awareness of subject-verb number agreement. In Experiment 1, a self-paced reading task, the reading times of deaf and hearing children (matched for reading and chronological age, mean=8;3 and 13;10 years) increased when sentences contained disagreeing subject-verb number markers. However, deaf adolescents' slowing occurred later in the sentence than it did in both groups of hearing children. The same deaf adolescents were unable to detect and correct subject-verb agreement errors in Experiment 2, whereas both groups of hearing children performed well on this task. Thus, deaf adolescents demonstrated implicit awareness of agreement in the absence of explicit knowledge. Moreover, this nascent awareness was below that expected on the basis of their (substantially delayed) reading ability. Therefore, grammatical difficulties could be a significant impediment to deaf children's literacy. Future research should examine whether this is a result of late or incomplete learning of English, bilingualism, or another factor.

Effects of reading speed on second-language sentence processing

ABSTRACTTo test the effects of reading speed on second-language (L2) sentence processing and the potential influence of conflicting native language word order, we compared advanced L2 learners of English with native English speakers on a self-paced reading task. L2 learners read faster overall than native English speakers. When differences in reading speed were controlled for, L2 learners were as sensitive to grammaticality manipulations as native English speakers. On-line reading times did not reflect any effect of cross-language conflict in the learners. Results from an end-of-sentence verification task showed a stronger bias toward a subject–object order in the cross-language conflict conditions in speed-matched L2 learners but not in L2 learners reading faster than native speakers. Results are compatible with hypothesized differences in resource allocation between L2 and native language processing.

L1 Korean Transfer in Processing L2 English Passive Sentences

This study shows transfer of L1 Korean properties in processing L2 English passive sentences online. There are some verbs in Korean that do not carry passive meaning, and I hypothesized that if L1 feeds L2 processing, Korean learners of L2 English would process slowly on the English passive sentences with the verbs. An online self-paced reading task was conducted with 75 Korean learners of L2 English and 13 native English controls. The 75 Korean participants were divided into three groups of English proficiency. The results demonstrate that lower-level Korean L2ers of English showed slowdown in reading and answering comprehension questions for English passive sentences when the English verbs in them do not carry passive meaning in Korean.