Unfamiliar Sentences Research Articles

The effect of monetary reward on listening effort and sentence recognition

Recently we showed that higher reward results in increased pupil dilation during listening (listening effort). Remarkably, this effect was not accompanied with improved speech reception. Still, increased listening effort may reflect more in-depth processing, potentially resulting in a better memory representation of speech. Here, we investigated this hypothesis by also testing the effect of monetary reward on recognition memory performance. Twenty-four young adults performed speech reception threshold (SRT) tests, either hard or easy, in which they repeated sentences uttered by a female talker masked by a male talker. We recorded the pupil dilation response during listening. Participants could earn a high or low reward and the four conditions were presented in a blocked fashion. After each SRT block, participants performed a visual sentence recognition task. In this task, the sentences that were presented in the preceding SRT task were visually presented in random order and intermixed with unfamiliar sentences. Participants had to indicate whether they had previously heard the sentence or not. The SRT and sentence recognition were affected by task difficulty but not by reward. Contrary to our previous results, peak pupil dilation did not reflect effects of reward. However, post-hoc time course analysis (GAMMs) revealed that in the hard SRT task, the pupil response was larger for high than low reward. We did not observe an effect of reward on visual sentence recognition. Hence, the current results provide no conclusive evidence that the effect of monetary reward on the pupil response relates to the memory encoding of speech.

The effect of linguistic comprehension instruction on generalized language and reading comprehension skills: A systematic review.

The effect of linguistic comprehension instruction on generalized language and reading comprehension skills: A systematic review.

“All that glitters is not … alone”. Congruity effects in highly and less predictable sentence contexts

Using natural connected speech, the aim of the present study was to examine the semantic congruity effect (i.e. the difference between semantically incongruous and congruous words) in sentence contexts that generate high or moderate final word expectancies. We used sentences with two levels of word expectancy in the auditory modality: familiar proverbs (that generate high final word expectancy), and unfamiliar sentences (that generate only moderate final word expectancy). Results revealed an early congruity effect (0-200 ms) that developed across all scalp sites for familiar proverbs but not for unfamiliar sentences. By contrast, typical centro-parietal N400 and Late Positivity Component congruity effects developed later (200-500 ms and 600-900 ms ranges) for both familiar proverbs and unfamiliar sentences. We argue that the early congruity effect for proverbs comprises both a Phonological Mismatch Negativity, reflecting the processing of the acoustic/phonological mismatch between the expected (congruous) and unexpected (incongruous) sentence completions and a typical N400 semantic congruity effect with an unusual short latency because final words can be predicted from the unusually high contextual constraints of familiar proverbs. These results are considered in the light of current views of anticipation and prediction processes in sentence contexts.

Right hemisphere metaphor processing? Characterizing the lateralization of semantic processes

Previous laterality studies have implicated the right hemisphere in the processing of metaphors, however it is not clear if this result is due to metaphoricity per se or another aspect of semantic processing. Three divided visual field experiments varied metaphorical and literal sentence familiarity. We found a right hemisphere advantage for unfamiliar sentences containing distant semantic relationships, and a left hemisphere advantage for familiar sentences containing close semantic relationships, regardless of whether sentences were metaphorical or literal. This pattern of results is consistent with theories postulating predominantly left hemisphere processing of close semantic relationships and predominantly right hemisphere processing of distant semantic relationships.

An Examination of the Value of the Generation Effect for Learning New Material

The generation effect involves an improvement in memory when learners must complete or modify materials. Several researchers have suggested that this effect involves enhanced access to learners' existing memory representations; therefore, the effect should be less effective with meaningless, low meaningful, or unfamiliar material. In the present study, the authors conducted 4 experiments in which legal nonwords were used, and they found no generation effect. In another 2 experiments in which familiar clichés were contrasted with new sentences and with unfamiliar sentences from textbooks, the results showed a greatly reduced generation effect for the new, unfamiliar material. Those findings suggest that memory strategies that depend on the generation effect will have limited effectiveness when they are applied to new or unfamiliar material.

Letter detection in very familiar texts.

In the present study, we investigated whether patterns of letter detection for function and content words in texts are affected by the familiarity of the material being read. In Experiment 1, subjects searched for target letters in sentences that had been rehearsed prior to performing the letter detection on them as well as on unfamiliar sentences. In Experiment 2, subjects searched for target letters in highly familiar verses (e.g., nursery rhymes) and in unfamiliar sentences that were matched to the familiar verses. A disadvantage in letter detection for function as compared with content words consistently found with unfamiliar passages was reduced significantly with the familiar material in both experiments. Specifically, letter detection for content words grew worse in familiar text, but letter detection for function words showed a contrasting modest, though nonsignificant, improvement. The results are consistent with the proposition that in very familiar texts, parafoveal analysis permits the identification of generally less familiar content words. Simultaneously, the normal pattern of weighing the structure and content elements of text changes so that more fixations on function words occur than when one is reading unfamiliar texts.

Articulation index transfer functions for 'DANTALE' (200 monosyllabic words).

Articulation Index (AI) transfer functions are presented for a Danish speech test (DANTALE) which consists of 200 monosyllabic words. The transfer functions represent three different scoring methods. Using a word score, DANTALE is found to be more difficult on speech recognition than rhyme tests, unfamiliar sentences and 256 phonetically balanced (PB) monosyllabic words.

Prosodic Structure and Sentence Recognition

In three experiments, subjects heard alternate versions of naturally spoken sentences that allowed two prosodic realizations (They are FRYING chickens vs They are frying CHICKENS). In Experiment 1, a paraphrase choice task showed that interpretations reliably depended on the prosody used. In Experiment 2, presented sentences were tested for recognition against unfamiliar sentences. Recognition ratings were higher if the sentences were spoken with the same prosody at presentation and test than if two different prosodic versions were presented on these two occasions. This matching effect was not larger for sentences whose prosodies biased listeners toward different syntactic analyses than for sentences whose prosodies effected changes in focus. Experiment 3 showed this integration of prosody and text for nonsense sentences.

Syntactic structure modifies attention during speech perception and recognition.

The present paper demonstrates the interaction of syntactic structure and speech perception with a response task which minimizes the effects of memory: reaction time (RT) to clicks during sentences. (1) In 12-word unfamiliar sentences each with two clauses, RT is relatively slow overall to clicks located at the end of the first clause but decreases as a function of clause length. Clicks at the beginning of the second clause are not affected by length of the preceding clause. (2) In familiar sentences, RT is relatively fast to clicks located at the end of a clause while RT to clicks at the beginning of clauses is relatively unaffected by familiarity. (3) RT is not fastest overall to clicks located between clauses either in novel or familiar sentences. (4) As in previous studies, the subject's subsequent judegment of the location of the click tone are towards the clause break. (5) We could find no systematic interaction between RT and subjective click location. Findings (1) to (3) are consistent with the view that perceptual processing alternates between attending to all external stimuli and developing an internal representation of the stimuli. Finding (3) is in conflict with an “information channel” view of immediate attention to speech, which would predict high sensory attention to non-speech stimuli between clauses. However, findings (4) and (5) indicate that the channel view of perception may be correct for that perceptual processing which occurs after the immediate organization of the speech stimulus into major segments.