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

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 415-441 ◽  
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.

scholarly journals Children do not overcome lexical biases where adults do: the role of the referential scene in garden-path recovery

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 222-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
EVAN KIDD ◽  
ANDREW J. STEWART ◽  
LUDOVICA SERRATRICE
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Test Sentence ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Initial Analysis ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Scene Information ◽  
Lexical Cues

ABSTRACTIn this paper we report on a visual world eye-tracking experiment that investigated the differing abilities of adults and children to use referential scene information during reanalysis to overcome lexical biases during sentence processing. The results showed that adults incorporated aspects of the referential scene into their parse as soon as it became apparent that a test sentence was syntactically ambiguous, suggesting they considered the two alternative analyses in parallel. In contrast, the children appeared not to reanalyze their initial analysis, even over shorter distances than have been investigated in prior research. We argue that this reflects the children's over-reliance on bottom-up, lexical cues to interpretation. The implications for the development of parsing routines are discussed.

Processing delays

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 65-78
Author(s):  
Loes Koring ◽  
Hans van de Koot
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Exact Time ◽  
On Line

Abstract An eye-tracking experiment using the Visual World Paradigm (VWP) shows that in on-line sentence processing in English the argument of an unaccusative verb reactivates late after verb offset. In contrast to previous studies, this VWP experiment establishes the exact time course of this effect, which matches the time course previously found for Dutch, despite differences in word order between the two languages. Furthermore, it uncovers an early reactivation of the argument of unergative verbs that has previously gone unnoticed. Such an effect has previously been observed for Dutch, but not for English. Moreover, the effect seems to occur earlier in English than in Dutch. We suggest that this difference may be due to the more rigid word order of English, which provides the parser with more informative cues.

scholarly journals Experience with code-switching modulates the use of grammatical gender during sentence processing

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge R. Valdés Kroff ◽  
Paola E. Dussias ◽  
Chip Gerfen ◽  
Lauren Perrotti ◽  
M. Teresa Bajo
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Gender Effect ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Asymmetric Effect ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
English Bilingual

Abstract Using code-switching as a tool to illustrate how language experience modulates comprehension, the visual world paradigm was employed to examine the extent to which gender-marked Spanish determiners facilitate upcoming target nouns in a group of Spanish-English bilingual code-switchers. The first experiment tested target Spanish nouns embedded in a carrier phrase (Experiment 1b) and included a control Spanish monolingual group (Experiment 1a). The second set of experiments included critical trials in which participants heard code-switches from Spanish determiners into English nouns (e.g., la house) either in a fixed carrier phrase (Experiment 2a) or in variable and complex sentences (Experiment 2b). Across the experiments, bilinguals revealed an asymmetric gender effect in processing, showing facilitation only for feminine target items. These results reflect the asymmetric use of gender in the production of code-switched speech. The extension of the asymmetric effect into Spanish (Experiment 1b) underscores the permeability between language modes in bilingual code-switchers.

scholarly journals Plausibility and recovery from garden paths in second language sentence processing

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
LEAH ROBERTS ◽  
CLAUDIA FELSER
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Second Language Processing ◽  
Real Time Processing ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
On Line

ABSTRACTIn this study, the influence of plausibility information on the real-time processing of locally ambiguous (“garden path”) sentences in a nonnative language is investigated. Using self-paced reading, we examined how advanced Greek-speaking learners of English and native speaker controls read sentences containing temporary subject–object ambiguities, with the ambiguous noun phrase being either semantically plausible or implausible as the direct object of the immediately preceding verb. Besides providing evidence for incremental interpretation in second language processing, our results indicate that the learners were more strongly influenced by plausibility information than the native speaker controls in their on-line processing of the experimental items. For the second language learners an initially plausible direct object interpretation lead to increased reanalysis difficulty in “weak” garden-path sentences where the required reanalysis did not interrupt the current thematic processing domain. No such evidence of on-line recovery was observed, in contrast, for “strong” garden-path sentences that required more substantial revisions of the representation built thus far, suggesting that comprehension breakdown was more likely here.

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.

Interpretation of contrastive pitch accent in six- to eleven-year-old English-speaking children (and adults)

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
KIWAKO ITO ◽  
SARAH A. BIBYK ◽  
LAURA WAGNER ◽  
SHARI R. SPEER
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Flexibility ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
On Line ◽  
English Speaking

ABSTRACTBoth off-line and on-line comprehension studies suggest not only toddlers and preschoolers, but also older school-age children have trouble interpreting contrast-marking pitch prominence. To test whether children achieve adult-like proficiency in processing contrast-marking prosody during school years, an eye-tracking experiment examined the effect of accent on referential resolution in six- to eleven-year-old children and adults. In all age groups, a prominent accent facilitated the detection of a target in contrastive discourse sequences (pink cat→greencat), whereas it led to a garden path in non-contrastive sequences (pink rabbit→greenmonkey: the initial fixations were on rabbits). While the data indicate that children as young as age six immediately interpret contrastive accent, even the oldest child group showed delayed fixations compared to adults. We argue that the children's slower recovery from the garden path reflects the gradual development in cognitive flexibility that matures independently of general oculomotor control.

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

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Peng Zhou ◽  
Jiawei Shi ◽  
Likan Zhan
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Preschool Children ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Gaze Patterns

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.

Prosody-driven Sentence Processing: An Event-related Brain Potential Study

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Pannekamp ◽  
Ulrike Toepel ◽  
Kai Alter ◽  
Anja Hahne ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Linguistic Information ◽  
Brain Potential ◽  
Positive Shift ◽  
Speech Stream ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Prosodic Boundaries ◽  
On Line ◽  
Closure Positive Shift

Four experiments systematically investigating the brain's response to the perception of sentences containing differing amounts of linguistic information are presented. Spoken language generally provides various levels of information for the interpretation of the incoming speech stream. Here, we focus on the processing of prosodic phrasing, especially on its interplay with phonemic, semantic, and syntactic information. An event-related brain potential (ERP) paradigm was chosen to record the on-line responses to the processing of sentences containing major prosodic boundaries. For the perception of these prosodic boundaries, the so-called closure positive shift (CPS) has been manifested as a reliable and replicable ERP component. It has mainly been shown to correlate to major intonational phrasing in spoken language. However, to define this component as exclusively relying on the prosodic information in the speech stream, it is necessary to systematically reduce the linguistic content of the stimulus material. This was done by creating quasi-natural sentence material with decreasing semantic, syntactic, and phonemic information (i.e., jabberwocky sentences, in which all content words were replaced by meaningless words; pseudoword sentences, in which all function and all content words are replaced by meaningless words; and delexicalized sentences, hummed intonation contour of a sentence removing all segmental content). The finding that a CPS was identified in all sentence types in correlation to the perception of their major intonational boundaries clearly indicates that this effect is driven purely by prosody.

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