Three-year-olds can predict a noun based on an attributive adjective: evidence from eye-tracking

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 425-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELENA TRIBUSHININA ◽  
WILLEM M. MAK
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Attributive Adjective ◽  
Attributive Adjectives

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates whether three-year-olds are able to process attributive adjectives (e.g., softpillow) as they hear them and to predict the noun (pillow) on the basis of the adjective meaning (soft). This was investigated in an experiment by means of the Visual World Paradigm. The participants saw two pictures (e.g., a pillow and a book) and heard adjective–noun combinations, where the adjective was either informative (e.g., soft) or uninformative (e.g., new) about the head-noun. The properties described by the target adjectives were not visually apparent. When the adjective was uninformative, the looks at the target increased only upon hearing the noun. When the adjective was informative, however, the looks at the target increased upon hearing the adjective. Three-year-olds were as fast as adult controls in predicting the upcoming noun. We conclude that toddlers process adjective–noun phrases incrementally and can predict the noun based on the prenominal adjective.

scholarly journals Pronouns Are as Sensitive to Structural Constraints as Reflexives in Early Processing: Evidence From Visual World Paradigm Eye-Tracking

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chung-hye Han ◽  
Keir Moulton ◽  
Trevor Block ◽  
Holly Gendron ◽  
Sander Nederveen
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Retrieval Process ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Literature Report ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Early Processing

A number of studies in the extant literature report findings that suggest asymmetry in the way reflexive and pronoun anaphors are interpreted in the early stages of processing: that pronouns are less sensitive to structural constraints, as formulated by Binding Theory, than reflexives, in the initial antecedent retrieval process. However, in previous visual world paradigm eye-tracking studies, these conclusions were based on sentences that placed the critical anaphors within picture noun phrases or prepositional phrases, which have independently been shown not to neatly conform to the Binding Theory principles. We present results from a visual world paradigm eye-tracking experiment that show that when critical anaphors are placed in the indirect object position immediately following a verb as a recipient argument, pronoun and reflexive processing are equally sensitive to structural constraints.

scholarly journals The Comprehension of Counterfactual Conditionals: Evidence From Eye-Tracking in the Visual World Paradigm

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Orenes ◽  
Juan A. García-Madruga ◽  
Isabel Gómez-Veiga ◽  
Orlando Espino ◽  
Ruth M. J. Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals

Phonological, not semantic, activation dominates Chinese character recognition: Evidence from a visual world eye-tracking study

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-628
Author(s):  
Xiuhong Tong ◽  
Wei Shen ◽  
Zhao Li ◽  
Mengdi Xu ◽  
Liping Pan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Character Recognition ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Chinese Character ◽  
Semantic Activation ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Chinese Character Recognition ◽  
Eye Fixations ◽  
Semantic Radical

Combining eye-tracking technique with a revised visual world paradigm, this study examined how positional, phonological, and semantic information of radicals are activated in visual Chinese character recognition. Participants’ eye movements were tracked when they looked at four types of invented logographic characters including a semantic radical in the legal (e.g., [Formula: see text]) and illegal positions ([Formula: see text]), a phonetic radical in the legal (e.g., [Formula: see text]) and illegal positions (e.g., [Formula: see text]). These logographic characters were presented simultaneously with either a sound-cued (e.g., /qiao2/) or meaning-cued (e.g., a picture of a bridge) condition. Participants appeared to allocate more visual attention towards radicals in legal, rather than illegal, positions. In addition, more eye fixations occurred on phonetic, rather than on semantic, radicals across both sound- and meaning-cued conditions, indicating participants’ strong preference for phonetic over semantic radicals in visual character processing. These results underscore the universal phonology principle in processing non-alphabetic Chinese logographic characters.

The on-line processing of binding principles in second language acquisition: Evidence from eye tracking

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 1317-1374 ◽  
Author(s):  
EUNAH KIM ◽  
SILVINA MONTRUL ◽  
JAMES YOON
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
On Line ◽  
Syntactic Binding

ABSTRACTThis study examined how adult L2 learners make use of grammatical and extragrammatical information to interpret reflexives and pronouns. Forty adult English native speakers and 32 intermediate–advanced Korean L2 learners participated in a visual world paradigm eye-tracking experiment. We investigated the interpretation of reflexives (himself) and pronouns (him) in contexts where there is a potential coargument antecedent and in the context of picture noun phrases (a picture of him/himself), where the distribution of reflexives and pronouns can overlap. The results indicated that the learners interpreted reflexives in a nativelike fashion in both contexts, whereas they interpreted pronouns differently from native speakers, even when learners had advanced English proficiency. Adopting the binding theory as developed in the reflexivity/primitives of binding framework (Reinhart & Reuland, 1993; Reuland, 2001, 2011), we interpret these results to mean that while adult L2 learners are able to apply syntactic binding principles to assign an interpretation to anaphoric expressions, they have difficulty in integrating syntactic information with contextual and discourse information.

Processing focus in native and non-native speakers of English: an eye-tracking study in the visual world paradigm

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Haoyan Ge ◽  
Iris Mulders ◽  
Xin Kang ◽  
Aoju Chen ◽  
Virginia Yip
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
Multiple Interfaces ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
The Difference

Abstract This “visual-world” eye-tracking study investigated the processing of focus in English sentences with preverbal only by L2 learners whose L1 was either Cantonese or Dutch, compared to native speakers of English. Participants heard only-sentences with prosodic prominence either on the object or on the verb and viewed pictures containing an object-focus alternative and a verb-focus alternative. We found that both L2 groups showed delayed eye movements to the alternative of focus, which was different from the native speakers of English. Moreover, Dutch learners of English were even slower than Cantonese learners of English in directing fixations to the alternative of focus. We interpreted the delayed fixation patterns in both L2 groups as evidence of difficulties in integrating multiple interfaces in real time. Furthermore, the similarity between English and Dutch in the use of prosody to mark focus hindered Dutch learners’ L2 processing of focus, whereas the difference between English and Cantonese in the realization of focus facilitated Cantonese learners’ processing of focus in English.

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