The influence of prominence cues in 7- to 10-year-olds’ pronoun resolution: Disentangling order of mention, grammatical role, and semantic role

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Liam P. BLYTHING ◽  
Maialen IRAOLA AZPIROZ ◽  
Shanley ALLEN ◽  
Regina HERT ◽  
Juhani JÄRVIKIVI
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Individual Variation ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Pronoun Resolution ◽  
Semantic Cues ◽  
Demonstrative Pronoun

Abstract In two visual world experiments we disentangled the influence of order of mention (first vs. second mention), grammatical role (subject vs object), and semantic role (proto-agent vs proto-patient) on 7- to 10-year-olds’ real-time interpretation of German pronouns. Children listened to SVO or OVS sentences containing active accusative verbs (küssen “to kiss”) in Experiment 1 (N = 72), or dative object-experiencer verbs (gefallen “to like”) in Experiment 2 (N = 64). This was followed by the personal pronoun er or the demonstrative pronoun der. Interpretive preferences for er were most robust when high prominence cues (first mention, subject, proto-agent) were aligned onto the same entity; and the same applied to der for low prominence cues (second mention, object, proto-patient). These preferences were reduced in conditions where cues were misaligned, and there was evidence that each cue independently influenced performance. Crucially, individual variation in age predicted adult-like weighting preferences for semantic cues (Schumacher, Roberts & Järvikivi, 2017).

scholarly journals Spared bottom-up but impaired top-down interactive effects during naturalistic language processing in schizophrenia: evidence from the visual-world paradigm

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (08) ◽  
pp. 1335-1345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Rabagliati ◽  
Nathaniel Delaney-Busch ◽  
Jesse Snedeker ◽  
Gina Kuperberg
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Spoken Language Processing ◽  
Level Information

AbstractBackgroundPeople with schizophrenia process language in unusual ways, but the causes of these abnormalities are unclear. In particular, it has proven difficult to empirically disentangle explanations based on impairments in the top-down processing of higher level information from those based on the bottom-up processing of lower level information.MethodsTo distinguish these accounts, we used visual-world eye tracking, a paradigm that measures spoken language processing during real-world interactions. Participants listened to and then acted out syntactically ambiguous spoken instructions (e.g. ‘tickle the frog with the feather’, which could either specify how to tickle a frog, or which frog to tickle). We contrasted how 24 people with schizophrenia and 24 demographically matched controls used two types of lower level information (prosody and lexical representations) and two types of higher level information (pragmatic and discourse-level representations) to resolve the ambiguous meanings of these instructions. Eye tracking allowed us to assess how participants arrived at their interpretation in real time, while recordings of participants’ actions measured how they ultimately interpreted the instructions.ResultsWe found a striking dissociation in participants’ eye movements: the two groups were similarly adept at using lower level information to immediately constrain their interpretations of the instructions, but only controls showed evidence of fast top-down use of higher level information. People with schizophrenia, nonetheless, did eventually reach the same interpretations as controls.ConclusionsThese data suggest that language abnormalities in schizophrenia partially result from a failure to use higher level information in a top-down fashion, to constrain the interpretation of language as it unfolds in real time.

Quantify individual variation of real‐time PM 2.5 exposure in urban Chinese homes based on a novel method

Indoor Air ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yungui Li ◽  
Yuqiong Wang ◽  
Jinze Wang ◽  
Long Chen ◽  
Zhenglu Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Individual Variation ◽  
Pm 2.5 ◽  
Novel Method

scholarly journals Pronominal anaphoric strategies in the West Saxon dialect of Old English

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCELLE COLE
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
The West ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Demonstrative Pronoun ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Additional Support ◽  
Selection Of

Building on previous studies that have discussed pronominal referencing in Old English (Traugott 1992; van Gelderen 2013; van Kemenade & Los 2017), the present study analyses the pronominal anaphoric strategies of the West Saxon dialect of Old English based on a quantitative and qualitative study of personal and demonstrative pronoun usage across a selection of late (postc. AD 900) Old English prose text types. The historical data discussed in the present study provide important additional support for modern cognitive and psycholinguistic theory. In line with the cognitive/psycholinguistic literature on the distribution of pronouns in Modern German (Bosch & Umbach 2007), the information-structural properties of referents rather than the grammatical role of the pronoun's antecedent most accurately explain the personal pronoun vs demonstrative pronoun contrast in the West Saxon dialect of Old English. The findings also highlight how issues pertaining to style, such as the author–writer relationship, text type, subject matter and the conventionalism propagated by text tradition, influence anaphoric strategies in Old English.

scholarly journals The timing of prominence information during the resolution of German personal and demonstrative pronouns

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Clare Patterson ◽  
Petra Schumacher
Keyword(s):  
Strong Preference ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Processing Conditions ◽  
Deep Processing ◽  
Strategic Control ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Demonstrative Pronoun ◽  
Additional Processing ◽  
Demonstrative Pronouns

German personal and demonstrative pronouns have distinct preferences in their interpretation; personal pronouns are more flexible in their interpretation but tend to resolve to a prominent antecedent, while demonstratives have a strong preference for a non-prominent antecedent. However, less is known about how prominence information is used during the process of resolution, particularly in the light of two- stage processing models which assume that reference will normally be to the most accessible candidate. We conducted three experiments investigating how prominence information is used during the resolution of gender-disambiguated personal and demonstrative pronouns in German. While the demonstrative pronoun required additional processing compared to the personal pronoun, prominence information did not affect resolution in shallow conditions. It did, however, affect resolution under deep processing conditions. We conclude that prominence information is not ruled out by the presence of stronger resolution cues such as gender. However, the deployment of prominence information in the evaluation of candidate antecedents is under strategic control.

scholarly journals Towards a richer evolutionary game theory

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (88) ◽  
pp. 20130544 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. McNamara
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Life History ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Evolutionary Game Theory ◽  
Individual Variation ◽  
Evolutionary Game ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Simplified Models ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Reductionist Approach

Most examples of the application of evolutionary game theory to problems in biology involve highly simplified models. I contend that it is time to move on and include much more richness in models. In particular, more thought needs to be given to the importance of (i) between-individual variation; (ii) the interaction between individuals, and hence the process by which decisions are reached; (iii) the ecological and life-history context of the situation; (iv) the traits that are under selection, and (v) the underlying psychological mechanisms that lead to behaviour. I give examples where including variation between individuals fundamentally changes predicted outcomes of a game. Variation also selects for real-time responses, again resulting in changed outcomes. Variation can select for other traits, such as choosiness and social sensitivity. More generally, many problems involve coevolution of more than one trait. I identify situations where a reductionist approach, in which a game is isolated from is ecological setting, can be misleading. I also highlight the need to consider flexibility of behaviour, mental states and other issues concerned with the evolution of mechanism.

Generating predictions based on semantic categories in a second language: A case of numeral classifiers in Japanese

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanako Mitsugi
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Facilitative Effect ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Numeral Classifiers ◽  
Native Japanese Speakers ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
Japanese Speakers

AbstractThis study examined whether native Japanese speakers and second language (L2) speakers of Japanese use information from numeral classifiers to predict possible referents. Using a visual-world eye-tracking paradigm, we asked participants to identify picture objects that take either the same or different numeral classifiers while they listened to Japanese sentences referring to one object. The results showed that native speakers looked to the target predictively more often when the classifier was informative about noun identity than when it was not. L2 learners also showed a facilitative effect of classifiers that was comparable to that of native speakers. In addition, we found that the level of proficiency played a role in the speed of real-time referent resolutions when the participants heard the target nouns in audio input. However, such an effect was not observed during the period when the predictions were generated.

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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