scholarly journals Graded expectations in visually situated comprehension: Costs and benefits as indexed by the N400

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Staudte ◽  
Christine Ankener ◽  
Heiner Drenhaus ◽  
Matthew W. Crocker
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Visual Context ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Visual World ◽  
N400 Amplitude ◽  
Scene Processing ◽  
Processing Effort ◽  
Reduction Of Uncertainty

AbstractRecently, Ankener et al. (Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2387, 2018) presented a visual world study which combined both attention and pupillary measures to demonstrate that anticipating a target results in lower effort to integrate that target (noun). However, they found no indication that the anticipatory processes themselves, i.e., the reduction of uncertainty about upcoming referents, results in processing effort (cf. Linzen and Jaeger, Cognitive Science, 40(6), 1382–1411, 2016). In contrast, Maess et al. (Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10, 1–11, 2016) found that more constraining verbs elicited a higher N400 amplitude than unconstraining verbs. The aim of the present study was therefore twofold: Firstly, we examined whether the graded ICA effect, which was previously found on the noun as a result of a likelihood manipulation, replicates in ERP measures. Secondly, we set out to investigate whether the processes leading to the generation of expectations (derived during verb and scene processing) induce an N400 modulation. Our results confirm that visual context is combined with the verb’s meaning to establish expectations about upcoming nouns and that these expectations affect the retrieval of the upcoming noun (modulated N400 on the noun). Importantly, however, we find no evidence for different costs in generating more or less specific expectations for upcoming nouns. Thus, the benefits of generating expectations are not associated with any costs in situated language comprehension.

Activation and Persistence of Implicit Causality Information in Spoken Language Comprehension

2010 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pirita Pyykkönen ◽  
Juhani Järvikivi
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Implicit Causality ◽  
Causality Information ◽  
Spoken Language Comprehension

A visual world eye-tracking study investigated the activation and persistence of implicit causality information in spoken language comprehension. We showed that people infer the implicit causality of verbs as soon as they encounter such verbs in discourse, as is predicted by proponents of the immediate focusing account ( Greene & McKoon, 1995 ; Koornneef & Van Berkum, 2006 ; Van Berkum, Koornneef, Otten, & Nieuwland, 2007 ). Interestingly, we observed activation of implicit causality information even before people encountered the causal conjunction. However, while implicit causality information was persistent as the discourse unfolded, it did not have a privileged role as a focusing cue immediately at the ambiguous pronoun when people were resolving its antecedent. Instead, our study indicated that implicit causality does not affect all referents to the same extent, rather it interacts with other cues in the discourse, especially when one of the referents is already prominently in focus.

scholarly journals Infants’ sensitivity to shape changes in 2D visual forms

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moira Rose Dillon ◽  
Véronique Izard ◽  
Elizabeth Spelke
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Geometric Property ◽  
Relative Length ◽  
Dynamic Scenes ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Geometric Properties ◽  
Invariant Shape ◽  
Shape Changes

Research in developmental cognitive science reveals that human infants perceive shape changes in 2D visual forms that are repeatedly presented over long durations. Nevertheless, infants’ sensitivity to shape under the brief conditions of natural viewing has been little studied. Three experiments tested for this sensitivity by presenting 128 seven-month-old infants with shapes for the briefer durations under which they might see them in dynamic scenes. The experiments probed infants’ sensitivity to two fundamental geometric properties of scale- and orientation-invariant shape: relative length and angle. Infants detected shape changes in closed figures, which presented changes in both geometric properties. Infants also detected shape changes in open figures differing in angle when figures were presented at limited orientations. In contrast, when open figures were presented at unlimited orientations, infants detected changes in relative length but not in angle. The present research therefore suggests that, as infants look around at the cluttered and changing visual world, relative length is the primary geometric property by which they perceive scale- and orientation-invariant shape.

Spoken language comprehension: insights from eye movements

2007 ◽  
pp. 308-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael K. Tanenhaus
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Language Production ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Response Measure ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Spoken Language Processing ◽  
Spoken Language Comprehension

Recently, eye movements have become a widely used response measure for studying spoken language processing in both adults and children, in situations where participants comprehend and generate utterances about a circumscribed “Visual World” while fixation is monitored, typically using a free-view eye-tracker. Psycholinguists now use the Visual World eye-movement method to study both language production and language comprehension, in studies that run the gamut of current topics in language processing. Eye movements are a response measure of choice for addressing many classic questions about spoken language processing in psycholinguistics. This article reviews the burgeoning Visual World literature on language comprehension, highlighting some of the seminal studies and examining how the Visual World approach has contributed new insights to our understanding of spoken word recognition, parsing, reference resolution, and interactive conversation. It considers some of the methodological issues that come to the fore when psycholinguists use eye movements to examine spoken language comprehension.

The Explanation of Cognition

1997 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 103-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Searle
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Rational Action ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Animal Brain ◽  
Broad Outline

What sorts of systematic explanations should we and can we seek in cognitive science for perception, language comprehension, rational action and other forms of cognition? In broad outline I think the answer is reasonably clear: We are looking forcausal explanations, and our subject matter iscertain functionsof a biological organ, the human and animal brain.

scholarly journals Error-based structure prediction in language comprehension: evidence from verb bias effect in a visual-world structural priming paradigm for Mandarin Chinese

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuemei Chen ◽  
Suiping Wang ◽  
Robert Hartsuiker
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Prediction Error ◽  
Structure Prediction ◽  
Time Windows ◽  
Critical Time ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Verb Bias

Structural priming studies in production have demonstrated stronger priming effects for unexpected sentence structures (inverse preference effect). This is consistent with error-based implicit learning accounts that assume learning depends on prediction error. Such prediction error can be verb-specific, leading to strong priming when a verb that is for instance biased towards the prepositional object (PO) structure occurs with an unexpected double object (DO) structure. However, it is unclear whether this mechanism also holds for language comprehension, especially for languages like Mandarin Chinese, which arguably depends strongly on semantics to predict syntax in comprehension. Experiment 1 was a norming study (N=367) that measured the biases (DO vs. PO) of 48 Mandarin Chinese dative verbs. Experiment 2 (N=72) crossed verb bias (DO-bias or PO-bias) and structure (DO or PO) of prime sentences in a visual-world paradigm, to examine whether Mandarin comprehenders show an inverse preference effect. The priming effect is expressed as the proportion of looks to the predicted referent (i.e., the recipient after a DO-prime, the theme after a PO-prime), for two critical time windows during target sentence processing: the verb and the first syllable of the first post-verbal noun (which was identical in theme and recipient). There was priming in both time windows, even though the verb differed between prime and target. Importantly, there was an inverse preference effect (i.e., stronger priming after a DO prime with a PO-biased verb than with a DO-biased verb) in the second time window. These results provide evidence for an error-based structure prediction system in comprehension.

A Measure of the Contribution of a Gesture to the Perception of Speech in Listeners With Aphasia

1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 1086-1099 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy L. Records
Keyword(s):  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Standardized Test Scores ◽  
Auditory Information ◽  
Visual Context ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Clinical Observations ◽  
Speech Information

The contribution of a visual source of contextual information to speech perception was measured in 12 listeners with aphasia. The three experimental conditions were: Visual-Only (referential gesture), Auditory-Only (computer-edited speech), and Audio-Visual. In a two-alternative, forced-choice task, subjects indicated which picture had been requested. The stimuli were first validated with listeners without brain damage. The listeners with aphasia were subgrouped as having high or low language comprehension based on standardized test scores. Results showed a significantly larger contribution of gestural information to the responses of the lower-comprehension subgroup. The contribution of gesture was significantly correlated with the amount of ambiguity experienced with the auditory-only information. These results show that as the auditory information becomes more ambiguous, individuals with impaired language comprehension deficits make greater use of the visual information. The results support clinical observations that speech information received without visual context is perceived differently than when received with visual context.

scholarly journals Referential vs. Non-referential World-Language Relations: How Do They Modulate Language Comprehension in 4 to 5-Year-Olds, Younger, and Older Adults?

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja Maquate ◽  
Pia Knoeferle
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Visual Context ◽  
Contrast Effects ◽  
World Language ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Mediated Action ◽  
Event Information

Age has been shown to influence language comprehension, with delays, for instance, in older adults' expectations about upcoming information. We examined to what extent expectations about upcoming event information (who-does-what-to-whom) change across the lifespan (in 4- to 5-year-old children, younger, and older adults) and as a function of different world-language relations. In a visual-world paradigm, participants in all three age groups inspected a speaker whose facial expression was either smiling or sad. Next they inspected two clipart agents (e.g., a smiling cat and a grumpy rat) depicted as acting upon a patient (e.g., a ladybug tickled by the cat and arrested by the rat). Control scenes featured the same three characters without the action depictions. While inspecting the depictions, comprehenders listened to a German sentence [e.g., Den Marienkäfer kitzelt vergnügt der Kater; literally: “The ladybug (object/patient) tickles happily the cat (subject/agent)”]. Referential verb-action relations (i.e., when the actions were present) could, in principle, cue the cat-agent and so could non-referential relations via links from the speaker's smile to “happily” and the cat's smile. We examined variation in participants' visual anticipation of the agent (the cat) before it was mentioned depending on (a) participant age and (b) whether the referentially mediated action depiction or the non-referentially associated speaker smile cued the agent. The action depictions rapidly boosted participants' visual anticipation of the agent, facilitating thematic role assignment in all age groups. By contrast, effects of the non-referentially cued speaker smile emerged in the younger adults only. We outline implications of these findings for processing accounts of the temporally coordinated interplay between listeners' age-dependent language comprehension, their interrogation of the visual context, and visual context influences.

scholarly journals Knowledge is a river and education is like a stairway: An eye movement study on how L2 speakers process metaphors and similes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henri Olkoniemi ◽  
Raymond Bertram ◽  
Johanna K. Kaakinen
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
English Proficiency ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Figurative Language Processing ◽  
Movement Study ◽  
Processing Effort ◽  
Figurative Language Comprehension

Very little is known about the processes underlying second language (L2) speakers’ understanding of written metaphors and similes. Most of the theories on figurative language comprehension do not consider reader-related factors. In the study, we used eye-tracking to examine how native Finnish speakers (N = 63) read written English nominal metaphors (“education is a stairway”) and similes (“education is like a stairway”). Identical topic–vehicle pairs were used in both conditions. After reading, participants evaluated familiarity of each pair. English proficiency was measured using the Bilingual-language Profile Questionnaire and the Lexical Test for Advanced Learners of English. The results showed that readers were more likely to regress within metaphors than within similes, indicating that processing metaphors requires more processing effort than processing similes. The familiarity of a metaphor and L2 English proficiency modulated this effect. The results are discussed in the light of current theories on figurative language processing.

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