Real-time comprehension of garden-path constructions by preschoolers: A Mandarin perspective

Abstract The present study investigated whether 4- and 5-year-old Mandarin-speaking children are able to process garden-path constructions in real time when the working memory burden associated with revision and reanalysis is kept to minimum. In total, 25 4-year-olds, 25 5-year-olds, and 30 adults were tested using the visual-world paradigm of eye tracking. The obtained eye gaze patterns reflect that the 4- and 5-year-olds, like the adults, committed to an initial misinterpretation and later successfully revised their initial interpretation. The findings show that preschool children are able to revise and reanalyze their initial commitment and then arrive at the correct interpretation using the later-encountered linguistic information when processing the garden-path constructions in the current study. The findings also suggest that although the 4-year-olds successfully processed the garden-path constructions in real time, they were not as effective as the 5-year-olds and the adults in revising and reanalyzing their initial mistaken interpretation when later encountering the critical linguistic cue. Taken together, our findings call for a fine-grained model of child sentence processing.

Download Full-text

Relation of working memory to off-line and real-time sentence processing in children with specific language impairment

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716400001065 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 117-148 ◽

Cited By ~ 88

Author(s):

JAMES W. MONTGOMERY

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Real Time ◽

Sentence Processing ◽

Language Impairment ◽

Specific Language Impairment ◽

Sentence Comprehension ◽

Memory Task ◽

Load Condition ◽

Specific Language ◽

Processing Task

In this study we examined the influence of working memory on the off-line and real-time sentence comprehension/processing of children with specific language impairment (SLI). A total of 12 children with SLI, 12 normally developing children matched for chronological age (CA), and 12 children matched for receptive syntax (RS) completed three tasks. In the working memory task, children recalled as many words as possible under three processing load conditions varying in the number of mental operations (i.e., no load, single load, dual load). In the off-line comprehension task, children listened to linguistically nonredundant and redundant sentences. In the real-time sentence processing task, children monitored sentences for the occurrence of a target word appearing at the beginning, middle, or end of a test sentence and pushed a response pad as quickly as possible upon hearing the target. In the memory task, SLI children recalled fewer words in the dual-load condition relative to CA peers, who showed no condition effect. The SLI and RS groups performed similarly overall; however, both groups recalled fewer words in the dual-load condition than in the other conditions. In the off-line task, the SLI group comprehended fewer sentences of both types relative to the CA controls and fewer redundant sentences relative to themselves and to the RS controls. A significant correlation between working memory and sentence comprehension was found for the SLI group and control groups. For the on-line task, between-group analyses revealed that the SLI group yielded an overall slower word recognition reaction time than the CA and RS groups. Working memory and sentence processing were not correlated for any group. Results were interpreted to suggest that SLI children have a more limited functional working memory capacity than their CA peers. Children with SLI also appear to have greater difficulty managing their working memory resources relative to both age peers and younger children when performing a conventional off-line sentence comprehension task but not a real-time sentence processing task.

Download Full-text

Eye gaze and viewpoint in multimodal interaction management

Cognitive Linguistics ◽

10.1515/cog-2016-0119 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 28 (3) ◽

pp. 449-483 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Geert Brône ◽

Bert Oben ◽

Annelies Jehoul ◽

Jelena Vranjes ◽

Kurt Feyaerts

Keyword(s):

Eye Gaze ◽

Multimodal Interaction ◽

Temporal Organization ◽

Language Resources ◽

Gaze Aversion ◽

Face To Face ◽

Fine Grained ◽

Dialogue Acts ◽

Gaze Patterns ◽

Shared Gaze

AbstractIn this paper, we present an embodiment perspective on viewpoint by exploring the role of eye gaze in face-to-face conversation, in relation to and interaction with other expressive modalities. More specifically, we look into gaze patterns, as well as gaze synchronization with speech, as instruments in the negotiation of participant roles in interaction. In order to obtain fine-grained information on the different modalities under scrutiny, we used the InSight Interaction Corpus (Brône, Geert & Bert Oben. 2015. Insight Interaction: A multimodal and multifocal dialogue corpus.Language Resources and Evaluation49, 195–214.). This multimodal video corpus consists of two- and three-party interactions (in Dutch), with head-mounted scene cameras and eye-trackers tracking all participants’ visual behavior, providing a unique ‘speaker-internal’ perspective on the conversation. The analysis of interactional sequences from the corpus (dyads and triads) reveals specific patterns of gaze distribution related to the temporal organization of viewpoint in dialogue. Different dialogue acts typically display specific gaze events at crucial points in time, as, e.g., in the case of brief gaze aversion associated with turn-holding, and shared gaze between interlocutors at the critical point of turn-taking. In addition, the data show a strong correlation and temporal synchronization between eye gaze and speech in the realization of specific dialogue acts, as shown by means of a series of cross-recurrence analyses for specific turn-holding mechanisms (e.g., verbal fillers co-occurring with brief moments of gaze aversion).

Download Full-text

Bilinguals on the garden-path: Individual differences in syntactic ambiguity resolution

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728920000711 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Trevor Brothers ◽

Liv J Hoversten ◽

Matthew J Traxler

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Executive Function ◽

Sentence Processing ◽

Working Memory Capacity ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

Memory Capacity ◽

English Speakers ◽

Language Experience ◽

Garden Path ◽

Verb Subcategorization

Abstract Syntactic parsing plays a central role in the interpretation of sentences, but it is unclear to what extent non-native speakers can deploy native-like grammatical knowledge during online comprehension. The current eye-tracking study investigated how Chinese–English bilinguals and native English speakers respond to syntactic category and subcategorization information while reading sentences with object-subject ambiguities. We also obtained measures of English language experience, working memory capacity, and executive function to determine how these cognitive variables influence online parsing. During reading, monolinguals and bilinguals showed similar garden-path effects related to syntactic reanalysis, but native English speakers responded more robustly to verb subcategorization cues. Readers with greater language experience and executive function showed increased sensitivity to verb subcategorization cues, but parsing was not influenced by working memory capacity. These results are consistent with exposure-based accounts of bilingual sentence processing, and they support a link between syntactic processing and domain-general cognitive control.

Download Full-text

The role of working memory in sentence processing in normal reading population. A review of related literature.

Archives of Business Research ◽

10.14738/abr.79.7032 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (9) ◽

pp. 19-26

Author(s):

Grammenou Anastasia

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Sentence Processing ◽

Memory Span ◽

Memory Model ◽

Garden Path ◽

Normal Reading ◽

Theory Of Language ◽

Text Context ◽

Working Memory Model

This essay aims to describe the factors that influence sentence processing with emphasis given on garden path sentences. The latter grammatical phenomenon has been proved more problematic in people with low working memory span. Predictions of the working memory model of Baddeley and Hich and the theory of language comprehension of Just and Carpenter were used to explain sentence processing within text context.

Download Full-text

Auditory sentence processing in bilinguals: The role of cognitive control

10.31234/osf.io/9za52 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Niloofar Akhavan ◽

Henrike Blumenfeld ◽

Tracy Love

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Control ◽

Real Time ◽

Sentence Processing ◽

Time Course ◽

Control Measures ◽

Direct Object ◽

Complex Sentence ◽

Real Time Processing ◽

The Real ◽

Garden Path

A number of research studies have shown that the unique need in bilinguals to manage both of their languages positively impacts their cognitive control processes. Yet, due to a dearth of studies at the sentence level, it is still unclear if this benefit extends to sentence processing. In monolinguals and bilinguals, cognitive control helps in reinterpretation of garden path sentences but it is still unknown how it supports the real-time resolution of interference during parsing, such as the type of interference seen in the processing of object relative (OR) sentences. In this study, we compared monolinguals and bilinguals during online spoken OR sentence processing and examined if both groups used cognitive control to resolve interference. In this eye-tracking visual world (ETL-vw) study, OR sentences were aurally presented to 19 monolingual and 21 English-Spanish bilingual adults while gaze patterns were captured throughout the time course of the sentence. Of particular interest was the post-verb position, where the listener connects the verb to its direct object. In OR constructions (e.g., “The man that the boy pushes__ has a red shirt.”), the verb (‘pushes’) links to its syntactically licensed direct object (‘the man’) at verb offset. During syntactic linking, the parser crosses over an intervening noun phrase (NP, ‘the boy’) and the two NP activations create interference. The nature of this paradigm allows us to measure interference and its resolution between the intervening NP and the displaced object in real-time. By relating sentence processing patterns with cognitive control measures, high- and no- conflict N-Back tasks, we investigated group differences in the use of cognitive control during sentence processing. Overall, bilinguals showed less interference than monolinguals from the intervening NP during the real time processing of OR sentences. This interference effect and its resolution was significantly predicted by cognitive control skills for bilingual, but not monolingual listeners. This enhanced effect in bilinguals extends previous findings of interference resolution to real time spoken sentence processing suggesting that bilinguals are more efficient than monolinguals at managing interference during complex sentence processing.

Download Full-text

What causes lingering misinterpretations of garden-path sentences: Incorrect syntactic representations or fallible memory processes?

10.31234/osf.io/euazs ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Y Huang ◽

Fernanda Ferreira

Keyword(s):

Sentence Processing ◽

Reading Time ◽

Question Answering ◽

Global Structure ◽

Correct Interpretation ◽

Garden Path ◽

Past Work ◽

Entire Sentence ◽

Final Interpretation ◽

Reading Measures

A key question in research on sentence processing concerns how sentences that have been misanalyzed are reinterpreted, and to what extent the parser’s attempts at revision are successful. Past work has shown that misinterpretations associated with a syntactic misparse linger even after the entire sentence has been processed (Christianson, Hollingworth, Halliwell, & Ferreira, 2001; Slattery, Sturt, Christianson, Yoshida and Ferreira, 2013). In two reading experiments, we sought to evaluate the level of representation that is responsible for misinterpretations of garden-path sentences. We combined reading measures with an offline comprehension task, which enabled us to conditionalize reading time analyses on correct versus incorrect question-answering performance. Our results suggest that reanalysis does not always result in a correct interpretation, either because the final interpretation does not always reflect the global structure or because reanalysis processes result in the creation of licit local trees but fail to generate a complete global parse for the entire sentence.

Download Full-text

On-line processing of English which-questions by children and adults: a visual world paradigm study

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000917000277 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 45 (2) ◽

pp. 415-441 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

CARLA CONTEMORI ◽

MATTHEW CARLSON ◽

THEODOROS MARINIS

Keyword(s):

Sentence Processing ◽

Visual World ◽

Visual World Paradigm ◽

Number Agreement ◽

Garden Path ◽

Initial Preference ◽

Syntactic Information ◽

Adults And Children ◽

On Line ◽

English Speaking

AbstractPrevious research has shown that children demonstrate similar sentence processing reflexes to those observed in adults, but they have difficulties revising an erroneous initial interpretation when they process garden-path sentences, passives, and wh-questions. We used the visual-world paradigm to examine children's use of syntactic and non-syntactic information to resolve syntactic ambiguity by extending our understanding of number features as a cue for interpretation to which-subject and which-object questions. We compared children's and adults’ eye-movements to understand how this information shapes children's commitment to and revision of possible interpretations of these questions. The results showed that English-speaking adults and children both exhibit an initial preference to interpret an object-which question as a subject question. While adults quickly override this preference, children take significantly longer, showing an overall processing difficulty for object questions. Crucially, their recovery from an initially erroneous interpretation is speeded when disambiguating number agreement features are present.

Download Full-text