The role of verbal working memory in L2 sentence comprehension

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Elma Kerz ◽  
Daniel Wiechmann
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Sentence Type ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Mixed Effects Modeling ◽  
Positive Correlations

Abstract Considerable variability has been observed in sentence comprehension abilities in both native speakers and second language (L2) learner populations. While it has long been established that, in native speakers, this variability is closely linked to individual differences (IDs) in verbal working memory (vWM), previous research on the role of vWM in L2 sentence comprehension has produced mixed results. Moreover, there is an accumulating body of evidence demonstrating that the relationship between vWM and native language comprehension abilities is mediated by language experience. However, to our knowledge, until now, no attempt has been made to integrate language experience measures into the vWM-L2 sentence comprehension relationship. The goal of the present study is twofold: (1) to determine whether and to what extent vWM – as gauged by a reading span (RSPAN) task – correlates with IDs in two proxy estimates of L2 experience and (2) to investigate the effects of vWM on L2 comprehension of three different types of complex sentences. Thirty-four German advanced learners of English participated in this study. Significant positive correlations were found between the RSPAN scores and both proxy estimates of L2 experience. Mixed-effects modeling revealed that vWM exerted a significant effect on L2 sentence comprehension that was not modulated by sentence type. Taken together, these results provide additional evidence in support of the involvement of vWM in L2 sentence comprehension and, to our knowledge, first evidence for the contribution of L2 experience to RSPAN task performance.

scholarly journals Parsing-error-Hindi

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samar Husain
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The Face ◽  
Case Markers ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Verbal Relations ◽  
Memory Constraints

The role of prediction during sentence comprehension is widely acknowledged to be very critical in SOV languages. Robust clause-fi?nal verbal prediction and its maintenance have been invoked to explain eff?ects such as anti-locality and lack of structural forgetting. At the same time, there is evidence that these languages avoid increased preverbal phrase complexity due to working-memory constraints. Given the critical role of prediction in processing of SOV languages, in this work, we study verbal predictions in Hindi (an SOV language) to investigate its robustness and fallibility using a series of completion studies. Analyses of verbal completions based on grammaticality (grammatical vs ungrammatical) as well as their syntactic property (in terms of verb class) show, as expected, frequent grammatical completions based on effective use of preverbal nouns and case-markers. However, there were also high instances of ungrammatical completions. In particular, consistent errors were made in conditions with 3 animate nouns with unique/similar case-markers. These errors increased in the face of adjuncts of di?ffering complexity following the preverbal nouns. The grammatical and ungrammatical completions show that native speakers of Hindi posit structures with at most 2 verbal heads and 5 core verbal relations, thus highlighting an upper bound to verbal prediction and its maintenance in such con?figurations. A rating study con?firmed that certain errors found in completion tasks can lead to grammatical illusions. Further, a detailed analysis of the completion errors in such cases revealed that the parser ignores the complete preverbal nominal features of the input and instead selectively reconstructs the input based on their frequency in the language to form illicit parses at the expense of globally consistent parses. Together, the results show that while preverbal cues are eff?ectively employed by the parser to make clause ?final structural predictions, the parsing system breaks down when the number of predicted verbs/relations exceeds beyond a certain threshold. In effect, the results suggests that processing in SOV languages is susceptible to center-embeddings similar to that in SVO languages. This highlights the over-arching influence of working-memory constraints during sentence comprehension and thereby on the parser to posit less complex structures.

Children's Verbal Working Memory: Role of Processing Complexity in Predicting Spoken Sentence Comprehension

2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 669-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beula M. Magimairaj ◽  
James W. Montgomery
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Word Recall ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Simple Sentences

Purpose This study investigated the role of processing complexity of verbal working memory tasks in predicting spoken sentence comprehension in typically developing children. Of interest was whether simple and more complex working memory tasks have similar or different power in predicting sentence comprehension. Method Sixty-five children (6- to 12-year-olds) completed a verbal working memory (listening) span task that varied in syntactic processing difficulty (simple sentences representing a “simple working memory task,” complex sentences representing a “complex working memory task”) and a standardized sentence comprehension test. Results Word recall on the simple and complex working memory tasks correlated with each other. Both memory tasks also correlated with children's sentence comprehension. Regression analyses showed that the simple working memory task remained a significant predictor of comprehension even after accounting for variance associated with age and performance on the complex working memory task. Conclusions Results were interpreted to suggest that relative to more complex verbal working memory tasks, simple tasks are more robust predictors of children's sentence comprehension because they represent a basic yet robust index of working memory that sufficiently captures controlled attentional focus.

The Role of Broca's Area in Sentence Comprehension

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 1664-1680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corianne Rogalsky ◽  
Gregory Hickok
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Functional Organization ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
General Function ◽  
Broca’S Area ◽  
Broca's Area

The role of Broca's area in sentence processing has been debated for the last 30 years. A central and still unresolved issue is whether Broca's area plays a specific role in some aspect of syntactic processing (e.g., syntactic movement, hierarchical structure building) or whether it serves a more general function on which sentence processing relies (e.g., working memory). This review examines the functional organization of Broca's area in regard to its contributions to sentence comprehension, verbal working memory, and other multimodal cognitive processes. We suggest that the data are consistent with the view that at least a portion of the contribution of Broca's area to sentence comprehension can be attributed to its role as a phonological short-term memory resource. Furthermore, our review leads us to conclude that there is no compelling evidence that there are sentence-specific processing regions within Broca's area.

The relationship between listening comprehension of text and sentences in preschoolers: Specific or mediated by lower and higher level components?

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELENA FLORIT ◽  
MAJA ROCH ◽  
M. CHIARA LEVORATO
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Text Comprehension ◽  
Listening Comprehension ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTTwo studies explored the relation between listening comprehension of text and listening comprehension of sentences in preschoolers aged 4 to 5 years, 11 months. The first study analyzed this relationship taking into account the role of lower level components, namely, word knowledge and verbal working memory, as possible mediators. These components specifically accounted for listening text comprehension, whereas sentence comprehension did not. Given that sentences forming a text are not processed in isolation but in context, the second study explored the role of the ability to use linguistic context, a higher level component, in listening comprehension of text and sentences. Listening sentence comprehension was facilitated by the use of context, which accounted for individual differences in listening text comprehension. Overall, results showed that listening text comprehension is related to lower level as well as higher level components, whereas listening sentence comprehension does not play a specific role.

scholarly journals Investigating the Role of Verbal Working Memory in Young Children's Sentence Comprehension

2013 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Whitney Boyle ◽  
Annukka K. Lindell ◽  
Evan Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Verbal Working Memory

scholarly journals The Critical Role of Semantic Working Memory in Language Comprehension and Production

2021 ◽  
pp. 096372142199517
Author(s):  
Randi C. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Activated State ◽  
Limited Scope

Although research on the role of verbal working memory (WM) in language processing has focused on phonological maintenance, considerable evidence indicates that the maintenance of semantic information plays a more critical role. This article reviews studies of brain-damaged and healthy individuals demonstrating the contribution of semantic WM to language processing. On the sentence-comprehension side, semantic WM supports the retention of individual word meanings prior to their integration. It also serves to maintain semantic information in an activated state such that semantic interference between sentence constituents can be resolved. Phonological WM does not appear to support either of these functions, though it contributes to verbatim sentence recall. On the production side, evidence points to the phrase as the minimal scope of advance planning in sentence formulation, and to semantic WM as supporting the representation of the meanings of the content words within a phrase. Planning at the phonological level appears to have a very limited scope, making few demands on phonological WM. These findings imply that treatment of semantic but not phonological WM deficits should lead to improved sentence comprehension and production, and preliminary findings support that view.

scholarly journals The Working Memory as Predictor of Performance in Arithmetic of Brazilian Students

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernanda David Vieira ◽  
Denise Oliveira Ribeiro ◽  
Heitor Blesa Farias ◽  
Patricia Martins Freitas
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
School Performance ◽  
Predictive Power ◽  
Performance Test ◽  
Fluid Intelligence ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
School Learning ◽  
Brazilian Students ◽  
Positive Correlations

Abstract Working memory (WM) is a predictor of school learning. This study aimed to investigate the predictive power of verbal and non-verbal working memory (WM) on students’ performance in arithmetic. 126 children between 6 and 11 years old participated in the research. The instruments were: School Performance Test, Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices, Corsi Block-tapping Test, and Digits Subtest. The results showed strong and positive correlations of school performance with fluid intelligence r = 0.64, with verbal WM and non-verbal WM, both with r = 0.51 (p < 0.001). After multiple linear regression, it was found that the performance in visuospatial WM was a strong predictor for arithmetic, an effect not found for reading. The regression showed that WM explains 38% of the variance for arithmetic. It is concluded that WM has an expressive contribution to school performance, being more specific the contributions of visuospatial WM for arithmetic.

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