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This study investigates the relative weighting of morphosyntactic and visual cues in spoken-language comprehension, and whether this varies systematically within and between first (L1) and second language (L2) speakers of German. In two experiments, 45 L1 and 39 L2 speakers answered probe questions targeting the action direction of subject- and object-extracted relative clauses, which were presented either in isolation (Experiment 1) or alongside scene depictions either matching or mismatching the action direction expressed in the sentence (Experiment 2). We hypothesized that visual cues contribute to shaping meaning representations in sentence comprehension, and that sensitivity to morphosyntactic cues during interpretation may predict reliance on visual cues in both L1 and L2 comprehension. We found reliable effects of visual cues in both groups, and in response to both relative-clause types. Further, proxies of morphosyntactic sensitivity were associated with higher agent-identification accuracy, especially in response to object-extracted relative clauses presented with mismatching visual cues. Lastly, morphosyntactic sensitivity was a better predictor of accuracy rates than L1–L2 grouping in our dataset. The results extend the generalizability of models of visuo-linguistic integration across populations and experimental settings. Further, the observed sentence-comprehension differences can be explained in terms of individual cue-weighting patterns, and thus point to the crucial role of sensitivity to distinct cue types in accounting for thematic-role assignment success in L1 and L2 speakers alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language comprehenders activate mental representations of sensorimotor experiences related to the content of utterances they process. However, it is still unclear whether these sensorimotor simulations are driven by associations with words or by a more complex process of meaning composition into larger linguistic expressions, such as sentences. In two experiments, we investigated whether comprehenders indeed create sentence-based simulations. Materials were constructed such that simulation effects could only emerge from sentence meaning and not from word-based associations alone. We additionally asked when during sentence processing these simulations are constructed, using a garden-path paradigm. Participants read either a garden-path sentence (e.g., "As Mary ate the egg was in the fridge") or a corresponding unambiguous control with the same meaning and words (e.g., "The egg was in the fridge as Mary ate"). Participants then judged whether a depicted entity was mentioned in the sentence or not. In both experiments, picture response times were faster when the picture was compatible (vs. incompatible) with the sentence-based interpretation of the target entity (e.g., both for garden-path and control sentence: an unpeeled egg), suggesting that participants created simulations based on the sentence content and only operating over the sentence as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prediction facilitates word processing in the moment, but the longer-term consequences of prediction remain unclear. We investigated whether prediction error during language encoding enhances memory for words later on. German-speaking participants read sentences in which the gender marking of the pre-nominal article was consistent or inconsistent with the predictable noun. During subsequent word recognition, we probed participants' recognition memory for predictable and unpredictable nouns. Our results indicate that individuals who demonstrated early prediction error during sentence reading, showed enhanced recognition memory for nouns overall. Results from an exploratory step-wise regression showed that prenominal prediction error and general reading speed were the best proxies for recognition memory. Hence, prediction error may facilitate recognition by furnishing memory traces built during initial reading of the sentences. Results are discussed in the light of hypotheses positing that predictable words show a memory disadvantage because they are processed less thoroughly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrastive focus, conveyed by prosodic cues, marks important information. Studies have shown that 6-year-olds learning English and Japanese can use contrastive focus during online sentence comprehension: focus used in a contrastive context facilitates the identification of a target referent (speeding up processing), whereas focus used inappropriately in a noncontrastive context misleads listeners to predict an incorrect referent, hindering the identification process (Ito et al., 2012, 2014). In Mandarin Chinese, the mapping between prosodic form and contrastive focus is less transparent, potentially delaying the acquisition of contrastive focus. This study assessed the online processing of contrastive focus by 196 Mandarin-speaking 4–10-year-olds and 34 adults in China, using the visual world paradigm. Stimuli contained a target NP in a mini discourse, with focus being used in contrastive (Experiment 1) versus Noncontrastive contexts (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 showed that the appropriate use of prosodic form for contrastive focus facilitated the identification of a target referent for 7–10-year-olds and adults, though not younger children. Experiment 2 showed that the inappropriate use of prosodic form for contrastive focus slowed the identification process only for 10-year-olds and adults. Thus, whereas 7–10-year-olds are sensitive to prosodic form for contrastive focus, only 10-year-olds use it as a primary cue to predict an upcoming referent like adults. The acquisition of contrastive focus in Mandarin is therefore a gradual process, with children showing sensitivity to contrastive focus during the early school years, and developing adult-like form–function mapping between prosody and focus until the end of primary school. Public Significance Statement: This study reveals a three-stage developmental trajectory of children learning Mandarin Chinese in acquiring adult-like abilities to use contrastive focus during online sentence comprehension. It suggests that the acquisition of contrastive focus in Mandarin Chinese might be a protracted process, probably due to the less transparent form–function mappings between prosody and focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender stereotypes are often involved in language comprehension. This study investigated whether and to what extent their processing is under strategic control, by examining both proportion and order effects related to gender stereotypes for role nouns. We manipulated stereotypical gender consistencies, as in "Li's daughter/son was a nurse...", the relative proportions of gender-consistent and gender-inconsistent sentences (80%:20% and 50%:50% for high-proportion and equal-proportion sessions, respectively), and a between-participant factor of session order (high-proportion sessions preceding equal-proportion sessions and a reversed order for the high–equal and equal–high groups, respectively). Linear mixed-effect models revealed a larger N400 and a larger late negativity for stereotypically inconsistent compared to consistent sentences for the high–equal group only. These results indicate that even if sentence contexts have already determined the gender of target role characters, gender stereotypes for role nouns are still activated when the first half of the experiment facilitates their activation. The analyses of trial-by-trial dynamics showed that the N400 effects gradually decreased throughout equal-proportion sessions for the equal–high group. Our findings suggest that the processing of gender stereotypes can be under strategic control. In addition, readers may develop other strategies based on sentence contexts, when the processing strategy based on cue validity is not available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effective use of preverbal linguistic cues to make successful clause-final verbal prediction as well as robust maintenance of such predictions has been argued to be a cross-linguistic generalisation for SOV languages such as German and Japanese. In this paper, we show that native speakers of Hindi (an SOV language) falter in forming a clause-final structure in the presence of a centre-embedded relative clause with a non-canonical word order. In particular, the fallibility of the parser is illustrated by the formation of a grammatically illicit locally coherent parse during online processing. Such a parse should not be formed if the grammatically licit matrix clause final structure was being successfully formed. The formation of a locally coherent parse is further illustrated by probing various syntactic dependencies via targeted questions. We show that the parser's susceptibility to form such structures is not driven by top-down processing, rather the effect can only be explained through a bottom-up parsing approach. Further, our investigation suggests that while plausibility is essential, presence of overt agreement features might not be necessary for forming a locally coherent parse in Hindi. These results go against top-down proposals to local coherence such as lossy surprisal and are consistent with the good-enough processing model to comprehension while only partially supporting the SOPARSE account. The work highlights how top-down processing and bottom-up information interact during sentence comprehension in SOV languages – prediction suffers with increased complexity of the preverbal linguistic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IntroductionStudies with heritage language speakers (HLS) have often used offline measurements, investigating the post-interpretive effects which emerge after processing has been completed. Relatively few studies have investigated heritage language processing using time-sensitive methods that allow the collection of evidence regarding real-time language processing rather than post-interpretive judgments. Using a self-paced-reading paradigm, we aimed to expand our understanding of HLS language processing by investigating evidentiality-the linguistic marking of information source, which is grammatically expressed in Turkish, but not in English.MethodParticipants were 54 bilingual speakers of Turkish and English: 24 HLS (English onset: 0-5 yrs) and 30 emigrant Turkish speakers (ES) who grew up in Turkey before emigrating to Australia (English onset = 6-17 yrs). Participants read sentences with evidential-marked verb forms that either matched or mismatched to the information source context. Word-by-word reading times and end-of-sentence acceptability judgment speed and accuracy were measured.ResultsThe results showed that although the HLS' responses were slower and less accurate than the ES in both reading times and end-of-sentence acceptability judgments, they showed similarities in online processing patterns. Both groups were faster at reading the mismatching sentences compared to the matching sentences; however, this pattern emerged during the time course of reading first for the indirect condition for the ES, and only later for the direct condition and for the HLS for both evidential conditions. Only HLS read faster in the target region with the direct evidential that is shown to be acquired earlier in childhood, than they did for the indirect evidential which is mastered later. In contrast, the end-of-sentence judgment data showed that while the ES group responded faster to matching direct sentences than matching indirect, this effect was missing for the HLS. Nevertheless, there were similar patterns for accuracy across evidential conditions: both groups were more accurate with the direct evidential.DiscussionOverall, the use of the self-paced-reading paradigm allowed insights into HLS' evidentiality processing above and beyond their generally slower and less accurate processing compared to the reference group. This study provides further evidence for differences in the patterns observed using online vs. post interpretive measures in HLS, reinforcing the importance of combining these methodologies for further understanding of HLS competence and performance.

IntroductionPsycholinguistic research often focuses on Indo-European and other commonly studied major languages, while typologically diverse languages remain understudied. In this paper, we examine the morphological and conceptual influences on the real-time comprehension of optional plural-marked sentences in Yucatec Maya, an indigenous language of Mexico with a less commonly studied optional plural marking system.MethodsFifty-one speakers of Yucatec Maya participated in a picture-sentence matching experiment carried out in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Pictures of one, two, or seven humans or animals depicting an intransitive action (conceptual number) were paired with auditorily presented sentences that had no plural marking, one plural, or two plurals (morphological number). Participants indicated by key press whether the picture and the sentence were an acceptable match, and decision time was recorded.ResultsIn the analysis of decision (yes versus no) and accuracy, morphological and conceptual factors interacted. In the analysis of decision time, however, morphological plural marking, but not conceptual number, led to faster decisions.DiscussionIn light of previous work on the role of conceptual factors in the computation of number agreement, the interaction between conceptual and morphological factors suggests that a language with optional plural marking (or low “morphological richness”) is associated with high conceptual influence on sentence comprehension. Importantly, the results of this study expand the empirical base of language types that have been investigated using psycholinguistic methods.

Bilinguals learn to resolve conflict between their two languages and that skill has been hypothesized to create long-term adaptive changes in cognitive functioning. Yet, little is known about how bilinguals recruit cognitive control to enable efficient use of one of their languages, especially in the less skilled and more effortful second language (L2). Here we examined how real-time cognitive control engagement influences L2 sentence comprehension (i.e., conflict adaptation). We tested a group of English monolinguals and a group of L2 English speakers using a recently-developed cross-task adaptation paradigm. Stroop sequences were pseudo-randomly interleaved with a visual-world paradigm in which participants were asked to carry out spoken instructions that were either syntactically ambiguous or unambiguous. Consistent with previous research, eye-movement results showed that Stroop-related conflict improved the ability to engage correct-goal interpretations, and disengage incorrect-goal interpretations, during ambiguous instructions. Such cognitive-to-language modulations were similar in both groups, but only in the engagement piece. In the disengagement portion, the modulation emerged earlier in bilinguals than in monolinguals, suggesting group differences in attentional disengagement following cognitive control recruitment. Additionally, incorrect-goal eye-movements were modulated by individual differences in working memory, although differently for each group, suggesting an involvement of both language-specific and domain-general resources.

This study presents a web-based sentence comprehension test aimed at identifying high school students who are at risk for a language delay. By assessing linguistic skills on a sample of high school students with Italian as an L2 and their monolingual peers, attending a vocational school, we were able to identify a subgroup of L2 students with consistent difficulties in sentence comprehension, though their reading skills were within the average range. The same subgroup revealed to experience a lack of support within the school context, suggesting that poor L2 skills might be a critical variable to consider in order to identify students at risk for school exclusion. Regarding the test, accuracy to the on-line sentence comprehension task was significantly predicted by reading abilities and vocabulary skills, thus indicating that this test might represent a rapid but efficient way to assess linguistic abilities at school. We recommend that establishing a valid and practical procedure for the evaluation of linguistic skills in bilingual students who struggle with their L2 is the first step toward promoting social inclusion in the multilingual classroom, in order to increase their ability to actively participate in school and social activities.

The present study examined the processing of temporal adverbial phrases such as "last week," which must agree in temporal features with the verb they modify. We investigated readers' sensitivity to this feature match or mismatch in two eye-tracking studies. The main aim of this study was to expand the range of concord phenomena which have been investigated in real-time processing in order to understand how linguistic dependencies are formed during sentence comprehension (Felser et al., 2017). Under a cue-based perspective, linguistic dependency formation relies on an associative cue-based retrieval mechanism (Lewis et al., 2006; McElree, 2006), but how such a mechanism is deployed over diverse linguistic dependencies remains a matter of debate. Are all linguistic features candidate cues that guide retrieval? Are all cues given similar weight? Are different cues differently weighted based on the dependency being processed? To address these questions, we implemented a mismatch paradigm (Sturt, 2003) adapted for temporal concord dependencies. This paradigm tested whether readers were sensitive to a temporal agreement between a temporal adverb like last week and a linearly distant, but structurally accessible verb, as well as a linearly proximate but structurally inaccessible verb. We found clear evidence that readers were sensitive to feature match between the adverb and the linearly distant, structurally accessible verb. We found no clear evidence on whether feature match with the inaccessible verb impacted the processing of a temporal adverb. Our results suggest syntactic positional information plays an important role during the processing of the temporal concord relation.

Prior research suggests that cognitive control can assist the comprehension of sentences that create conflict between interpretations, at least under some circumstances. However, the mixed pattern of results suggests that cognitive control may not always be necessary for accurate comprehension. We tested whether cognitive control recruitment for language processing is systematically variable, depending on the type of sentential ambiguity or conflict, individual differences in cognitive control, and task demands. Participants completed two sessions in a web-based experiment. The first session tested conflict modulation using interleaved Stroop and sentence comprehension trials. Critical sentences contained syntax-semantics or phrase-attachment conflict. In the second session, participants completed three cognitive control and three working memory tasks. Exploratory factor analysis was used to index individual differences in a cognitive control factor and a working memory factor. At the group level, there were no significant conflict modulation effects for either syntax-semantics or phrase-attachment conflict. At the individual differences level, the cognitive control factor correlated with offline comprehension accuracy but not online processing measures for both types of conflict. Together, the results suggest that the role of cognitive control in sentence processing may vary according to task demands. When overt decisions are required, individual differences in cognitive control may matter such that better cognitive control results in better language comprehension performance. The results add to the mixed evidence on conflict modulation and raise questions about the situations under which cognitive control influences online processing.

Ageing entails different functional brain changes. Education, reading experience, and leisure activities, among others, might contribute to the maintenance of cognitive performance among older adults and are conceptualised as proxies for cognitive reserve. However, ageing also conveys a depletion of working memory capacity, which adversely impacts language comprehension. This study investigated how cognitive reserve proxies and working memory jointly predict the performance of healthy older adults in a sentence reading comprehension task, and how their predictive value changes depending on sentence structure and task demands. Cognitively healthy older adults (n = 120) completed a sentence–picture verification task under two conditions: concurrent viewing of the sentence and picture or their sequential presentation, thereby imposing greater demands on working memory. They also completed a questionnaire on cognitive reserve proxies as well as a verbal working memory test. The sentence structure was manipulated by altering the canonical word order and modifying the amount of propositional information. While the cognitive reserve was the main predictor in the concurrent condition, the predictive role of working memory increased under the sequential presentation, particularly for complex sentences. These findings highlight the complementary roles played by cognitive reserve and working memory in the reading comprehension of older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large amount of sentence-processing work has focused on revealing how the parser incrementally integrates each incoming word into the current linguistic representation. It is often explicitly or implicitly assumed that the structure endorsed by the parser should determine the ultimate interpretation of the sentence. The current study investigates whether the interpretive bias in sentence comprehension necessarily tracks the parsing bias. Our case study concerns the locality bias in nonlocal dependencies, specifically Mandarin wh-in-situ scope dependencies. Our findings suggest a misalignment between parsing and interpretative decisions at the global level. In particular, for Mandarin wh-in-situ constructions that involve scope ambiguity, there is a locality bias in parsing, but an antilocality bias in interpretation. Building upon the rational speech act framework, we propose a Bayesian pragmatic analysis to account for these findings. Under our proposal, the seeming conflict between parsing and interpretation will ultimately disappear because parsing preferences will be naturally embedded under the pragmatic reasoning process to generate the ultimate interpretation. The current study therefore makes novel contributions, both empirically and theoretically, to addressing the broader question about the relationship between parsing and interpretation.* [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the influence of the lexical and grammatical aspect of events on pronoun resolution in adults (18 to 23 years, N = 46), adolescents (13 to 14 years, N=66) and children (7 to 11 years, N=192). Participants were presented with 64 two-sentence stimuli: the first sentence described events with two same gender protagonists; the second began with a personal pronoun and described a status that could be attributed to either protagonist. Participants recorded to whom the pronoun referred, in a booklet. For all groups, Subject resolutions were more likely for events (a) without endpoints relative to those with endpoints, and (b) described as ongoing rather than completed, but this latter influence was restricted to events with endpoints for adults and adolescents. The findings provide support for the Event Structure Hypothesis of pronoun resolution (Rohde, Kehler & Elman, 2006) and provide new insights into the development of pronoun resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether English native speakers and highly proficient non-native speakers make comparable use of plausibility information during online sentence processing. Two sentence types involving temporarily ambiguous structural configurations—subordinate-clause ambiguity sentences and sentences with adjacent/split verb-particle constructions (VPCs)—were tested in a self-paced reading task. In the subordinate-clause ambiguity sentences, the pattern of reading times indicated that both native and non-native speakers used plausibility to recover from initial structural misanalysis. Native speakers were also able to use this information during syntactic and semantic reanalysis in the sentences involving split VPCs. Non-native speakers, however, showed persistent processing difficulty for split VPC sentences, regardless of plausibility. These results are taken to indicate that both native speakers and non-native speakers use plausibility information to recover from misanalysis, even in sentences that require major syntactic revision. The only clear limit on non-native speakers' ability to use this information related to lexico-syntactic/semantic processing difficulty, in that they appeared to be unable to use this information to recover from misanalysis associated with the structural properties of English VPCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negation is frequently used in natural language, yet relatively little is known about its processing. More importantly, what is known regarding the neurophysiological processing of negation is mostly based on results of studies using written stimuli (the word-by-word paradigm). While the results of these studies have suggested processing costs in connection to negation (increased negativities in brain responses), it is difficult to know how this translates into processing of spoken language. We therefore developed an auditory paradigm based on a previous visual study investigating processing of affirmatives, sentential negation (not), and prefixal negation (un-). The findings of processing costs were replicated but differed in the details. Importantly, the pattern of ERP effects suggested less effortful processing for auditorily presented negated forms (restricted to increased anterior and posterior positivities) in comparison to visually presented negated forms. We suggest that the natural flow of spoken language reduces variability in processing and therefore results in clearer ERP patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translating experimental tasks that were designed to investigate differences between conditions at the group-level into valid and reliable instruments to measure individual differences in cognitive skills is challenging (Hedge et al., 2018; Rouder et al., 2019; Rouder & Haaf, 2019). For psycholinguists, the additional complexities associated with selecting or constructing language stimuli, and the need for appropriate well-matched baseline conditions make this endeavour particularly complex. In a typical experiment, a process-of-interest (e.g. ambiguity resolution) is targeted by contrasting performance in an experimental condition with performance in a wellmatched control condition. In many cases, careful between-condition matching precludes the same participant from encountering all stimulus items. Unfortunately, solutions that work for group-level research (e.g. constructing counterbalanced experiment versions) are inappropriate for individual-differences designs. As a case study, we report an ambiguity resolution experiment that illustrates the steps that researchers can take to address this issue and assess whether their measurement instrument is both valid and reliable. On the basis of our findings, we caution against the widespread approach of using datasets from group-level studies to also answer important questions about individual differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a visual world eye‐tracking study on Tseltal (a Mayan language) and investigate whether verbal information can be used to anticipate an upcoming referent. Basic word order in transitive sentences in Tseltal is Verb–Object–Subject (VOS). The verb is usually encountered first, making argument structure and syntactic information available at the outset, which should facilitate anticipation of the post‐verbal arguments. Tseltal speakers listened to verb‐initial sentences with either an object‐predictive verb (e.g., "eat") or a general verb (e.g., "look for") (e.g., "Ya slo'/sle ta stukel on te kereme," Is eating/is looking (for) by himself the avocado the boy/ "The boy is eating/is looking (for) an avocado by himself") while seeing a visual display showing one potential referent (e.g., avocado) and three distractors (e.g., bag, toy car, coffee grinder). We manipulated verb type (predictive vs. general) and recorded participants' eye movements while they listened and inspected the visual scene. Participants' fixations to the target referent were analyzed using multilevel logistic regression models. Shortly after hearing the predictive verb, participants fixated the target object before it was mentioned. In contrast, when the verb was general, fixations to the target only started to increase once the object was heard. Our results suggest that Tseltal hearers pre‐activate semantic features of the grammatical object prior to its linguistic expression. This provides evidence from a verb‐initial language for online incremental semantic interpretation and anticipatory processing during language comprehension. These processes are comparable to the ones identified in subject‐initial languages, which is consistent with the notion that different languages follow similar universal processing principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En este artículo presentamos un recorrido crítico sobre las diversas investigaciones realizadas hasta el momento en torno a la asimetría sujeto/objeto en la comprensión de oraciones de relativo en español. Revisamos los hallazgos alcanzados hasta aquí mediante distintas técnicas experimentales y ofrecemos un panorama de lo que esos descubrimientos aportan en la discusión de las principales propuestas teóricas sobre la comprensión de oraciones. Nos enfocamos en cuatro aspectos de las cláusulas relativas en español que pueden permitir enriquecer las hipótesis con las que contamos: (i) la ambigüedad estructural, (ii) la variedad de tipos de relativas en español (encabezadas, semilibres y libres), (iii) el orden de constituyentes y (iv) la información de animacidad y los rasgos de género, número y caso de los nominales de las relativas. Intentamos así identificar qué sabemos, qué resta por comprender y cuáles son las direcciones más relevantes de la investigación en español para informar los modelos teóricos contemporáneos.

• A meta-analysis of visual world eye-tracking studies on phonological prediction. • A small and short-lived but reliable effect of phonological prediction. • The effect occurred early and not around the predictable word onset. • Listeners predict phonology as soon as possible but may not predict when it occurs. Current theories of language prediction stipulate that people can predict various types of linguistic information, including the phonological form of a highly predictable word, and some theories posit that phonological prediction plays a pivotal role in prediction-driven learning. However, a review of studies investigating phonological prediction suggests that the effect is inconsistent and small, which raises a question about its role during everyday language comprehension and language learning. Here, I conduct a meta-analysis of visual-world eye-tracking studies investigating phonological prediction with the goal of revealing the robustness and the time-course of the phonological prediction effect. The combined analysis of 20 experiments revealed a small but reliable effect of the phonological prediction effect. This effect emerged rapidly but was not closely aligned to the predictable word onset. The size of this effect depended on the target word cloze probability and depended marginally on the experiment design and the type of visual stimuli. I discuss the implications for the theories of language prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Purpose to investigate prosodic boundary effects on the comprehension of attachment ambiguities in Brazilian Portuguese and to test two hypotheses relying on the notion of boundary strength: the absolute boundary hypothesis (ABH) and the relative boundary hypothesis (RBH). Manipulations of prosodic structure influence how listeners interpret syntactically ambiguous sentences. However, the role of prosody in spoken language comprehension of sentences has received limited attention in languages other than English, particularly from a developmental perspective. Methods Twenty-three adults and 15 children participated in a computerized sentence comprehension task involving syntactically ambiguous sentences. Each sentence was recorded in eight different prosodic forms with acoustic manipulations of F0, duration and pause varying the boundary size to reflect predictions of the ABH and RBH. Results Children and adults differed in how prosody influenced their syntactic processing and children were significantly slower than adults. Results indicated that interpretation of sentences varied according to their prosodic forms. Conclusion Neither the ABH or the RBH explained how children and adults who speak Brazilian Portuguese use prosodic boundaries to disambiguate sentences. There is evidence that the way prosodic boundaries influence disambiguation varies cross-linguistically.

Although all healthy adults have advanced syntactic processing abilities in their native language, psycholinguistic studies report extensive variation among them. However, very few tests were developed to assess this variation, presumably, because when adult native speakers focus on syntactic processing, not being distracted by other tasks, they usually reach ceiling performance. We developed a Sentence Comprehension Test for the Russian language aimed to fill this gap. The test captures variation among participants and does not show ceiling effects. The Sentence Comprehension Test includes 60 unambiguous grammatically complex sentences and 40 control sentences that are of the same length, but are syntactically simpler. Every sentence is accompanied by a comprehension question targeting potential syntactic processing problems and interpretation errors associated with them. Grammatically complex sentences were selected on the basis of the previous literature and then tested in a pilot study. As a result, six constructions that trigger the largest number of errors were identified. For these constructions, we also analyzed which ones are associated with the longest word-by-word reading times, question answering times and the highest error rates. These differences point to different sources of syntactic processing difficulties and can be relied upon in subsequent studies. We conducted two experiments to validate the final version of the test. Getting similar results in two independent experiments, as well as in two presentation modes (reading and listening modes are compared in Experiment 2) confirms its reliability. In Experiment 1, we also showed that the results of the test correlate with the scores in the verbal working memory span test.

Negation is frequently used in natural language, yet relatively little is known about its processing. More importantly, what is known regarding the neurophysiological processing of negation is mostly based on results of studies using written stimuli (the word-by-word paradigm). While the results of these studies have suggested processing costs in connection to negation (increased negativities in brain responses), it is difficult to know how this translates into processing of spoken language. We therefore developed an auditory paradigm based on a previous visual study investigating processing of affirmatives, sentential negation (not), and prefixal negation (un-). The findings of processing costs were replicated but differed in the details. Importantly, the pattern of ERP effects suggested less effortful processing for auditorily presented negated forms (restricted to increased anterior and posterior positivities) in comparison to visually presented negated forms. We suggest that the natural flow of spoken language reduces variability in processing and therefore results in clearer ERP patterns.

In everyday communication, speakers make errors and produce language in a noisy environment. Recent work suggests that comprehenders possess cognitive mechanisms for dealing with noise in the linguistic signal: a noisy-channel model. A key parameter of these models is the noise model: the comprehender's implicit model of how noise affects utterances before they are perceived. Here we examine this noise model in detail, asking whether comprehension behavior reflects a noise model that is adapted to context. We asked readers to correct sentences if they noticed errors, and manipulated context by including exposure sentences containing obvious deletions (A bystander was rescued by the fireman in the nick time.), insertions, exchanges, mixed errors, or no errors. On test sentences (The bat swung the player.), participants' corrections differed depending on the exposure condition. The results demonstrate that participants model specific types of errors and make inferences about the intentions of the speaker accordingly.

The risk for language disorder is high in children with all levels of hearing loss (HL). Early identification and intervention should be as important for children with mild HL as for those with more severe HL. Despite new-born hearing screening, a recent survey of speech language therapist services in southern Sweden indicates that children with mild and moderate HL are severely neglected when it comes to language assessment and language intervention. In this study we explore associations between Best Ear Hearing Level (BEHL), time factors and language skills in Swedish children with HL with hearing aids (HA). Participants were 19 children with mild HL (BEHL 23–39) and 22 children with moderate HL (BEHL 40–70) aged 5–15 years. Information on age at diagnosis and at HA fitting were collected. The children performed a nonword repetition and a sentence comprehension task. The time elapsed between diagnosis and fitting with HA was longer for the children with mild HL.Participants with mild HL received their HA significantly later than children with moderate HL. No association between BEHL and the two language measures was found, and language skills were not better in children with mild than moderate HL. 17% of participants performed below cut-off for language disorder on both language measures. Given the risk for long-term academic and social consequences of even mild HL delayed HA intervention for children with HLleads to serious concerns by families, clinicians, and pedagogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language comprehension has been a fascinating area of research for grammarians, linguists, philosophers and computer scientists alike. In Marathi grammatical tradition, a sentence is viewed from the verb-centric position in several treatises. Moreover, the complete discussion is put in a theoretical framework. The current report, the extension of earlier research on the Marathi language, adopts an experimental outlook to examine the communicative aspect of the sentence in colloquial (non-standard variety) Marathi written conversations. Based on the subjective reports of 95 native and non-native readers obtained from four experiments it is argued that a single-verb in a conversation is comprehensible hence can be regarded as a complete sentence itself. The contrastive analysis suggests that complete sentences are easier to process than single-verb sentences, which in turn, are more accurately comprehended than nominal sentences. Resorting on textual and sociolinguistic variables, the report also probes into the underlying nuances of language comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some theories of sentence processing make a distinction between two kinds of meaning: a linguistic meaning encoded at the lexicon (i.e., selectional restrictions), and an extralinguistic knowledge derived from our everyday experiences (i.e., world knowledge). According to such theories, the former meaning is privileged over the latter in terms of the time-course of its access and influence during on-line language comprehension. The present study aims to examine whether world knowledge anomalies (that do not violate selectional restrictions) are rapidly detected during online sentence processing. In an eye-tracking experiment, we used materials in which the likelihood of a specific verb (entrevistar or secuestrar, the Spanish translations for to interview and to kidnap) depended on the agent of the event (periodista or terrorista, the Spanish translations for journalist and terrorist). The results showed an effect of typicality in regression path duration and total reading times at both the verb region and the spillover region, thus providing evidence that world knowledge is rapidly accessed and used during on-line sentence comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study focuses on individual differences in the ability to recover from an initial misinterpretation during the processing of garden path (GP) sentences with local syntactic ambiguity. The performance of reanalysis in GP sentences is a cognitive task that requires efficient use of executive functions and allocation of working memory resources. In this study, we explored the possible role of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which has long been implicated in cognitive control processes, in the successful performance of reanalysis. We examined whether participants' ability to successfully reanalyze a sentence with local ambiguity can be predicted based on (1) their tonic dopamine levels, as reflected by their resting state spontaneous eye-blink rate, measured prior to the experiment; and (2) their reading time patterns in the critical region of the sentence. We ran a self-paced reading experiment in Hebrew, assessing reanalysis performance via a paraphrasing task. We observed a linear and polynomial effect of eye-blink rate on reanalysis performance, with medium rates, corresponding to medium dopamine levels, associated with best performance. We also observed an effect of reading times, with longer reading times in the critical region predicting better reanalysis performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of the present study is to investigate visual and verbal short-term memory side to side with sentence comprehension in Catalan-speaking subjects with aphasia in comparison with subjects without brain damage. We aim to examine whether there are any significant correlations between their performance on short-term memory and comprehension tasks in order to evaluate the hypothesis that linguistic and memory deficits in aphasia are the result of a dysfunction of a common mechanism, usually short-term memory. Eigthy-four control subjects and twelve individuals suffering from different types of aphasia were assessed using the Catalan version of the Comprehensive Aphasia Test (CAT-CAT), which includes one recognition task and two digit and word span tests to evaluate visual and verbal short-term memory, respectively, as well as a sentence-to-picture comprehension task. The results showed that the performance of subjects with aphasia was significantly low on all tasks. Yet, the logistic regression analysis revealed that the magnitude of the differences between the control and experimental group varied across subtests, and that visual short-term memory was better preserved than verbal memory. The results also showed that there were no significant correlations between memory and language comprehension, which rules out the hypothesis that the deficits observed are due to a common underlying mechanism. Individual variation was also observed, specially on memory subtests, which suggest that memory impairments cannot explain the comprehension deficit in aphasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of cross-linguistic transfer versus general processing strategy in two groups of heritage speakers (n = 28 per group) with the same heritage language – Russian – and typologically different dominant languages: English and Estonian. A group of homeland Russian speakers (n = 36) is tested to provide baseline comparison. Within the framework of the Competition model (MacWhinney, 2012), cross-linguistic transfer is defined as reliance on the processing cue prevalent in the heritage speaker's dominant language (e.g. word order in English) for comprehension of heritage language. In accordance with the Isomorphic Mapping Hypothesis (O'Grady and Lee, 2005), the general processing strategy is defined in terms of isomorphism as a linear alignment between the order of the sentence constituents and the temporal sequence of events. Participants were asked to match pictures on the computer screen with auditorily presented sentences. Sentences included locative or instrumental constructions, in which two cues – word order (basic vs. inverted) and isomorphism mapping (isomorphic vs. nonisomorphic) – were fully crossed. The results revealed that (1) Russian native speakers are sensitive to isomorphism in sentence processing; (2) English-dominant heritage speakers experience dominant language transfer, as evidenced by their reliance primarily on the word order cue; (3) Estonian-dominant heritage speakers do not show significant effects of isomorphism or word order but experience significant processing costs in all conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents "Test porozumění větám", the adapted Czech version of the original Slovak test. The aim of the article is a brief description of the test, the process of adaptation and setting the standards for the Czech version, with some results and discussion. Percentile standards for adults were determined with respect to age (Nohová et al., in preparation). The dia­gnostic tool is used for an in-depth assessment of spoken language comprehension at the sentence level. It contains 48 sentences with various syntactic constructions and linguistic factors. It can be used in a number of patients - in people with aphasia, cognitive-communication disorders and others. Its further use is the subject of follow-up and future research.

The main goal of the present study is to investigate visual and verbal short-term memory side to side with sentence comprehension in Catalan-speaking subjects with aphasia in comparison with subjects without brain damage. We aim to examine whether there are any significant correlations between their performance on short-term memory and comprehension tasks in order to evaluate the hypothesis that linguistic and memory deficits in aphasia are the result of a dysfunction of a common mechanism, usually short-term memory. Eigthy-four control subjects and twelve individuals suffering from different types of aphasia were assessed using the Catalan version of the Comprehensive Aphasia Test (CAT-CAT), which includes one recognition task and two digit and word span tests to evaluate visual and verbal short-term memory, respectively, as well as a sentence-to-picture comprehension task. The results showed that the performance of subjects with aphasia was significantly low on all tasks. Yet, the logistic regression analysis revealed that the magnitude of the differences between the control and experimental group varied across subtests, and that visual short-term memory was better preserved than verbal memory. The results also showed that there were no significant correlations between memory and language comprehension, which rules out the hypothesis that the deficits observed are due to a common underlying mechanism. Individual variation was also observed, specially on memory subtests, which suggest that memory impairments cannot explain the comprehension deficit in aphasia.

Alpha power attenuation during cognitive task performing has been suggested to reflect a process of release of inhibition, increase of excitability, and thereby benefit the improvement of performance. Here, we hypothesized that changes in individual alpha power during the execution of a complex language comprehension task may correlate with the individual performance in that task. We tested this using magnetoencephalography (MEG) recorded during comprehension of German sentences of different syntactic complexity.Results showed that neither the frequency nor the power of the spontaneous oscillatory activity at rest were associated with the individual performance. However, during the execution of a sentences processing task, the individual alpha power attenuation did correlate with individual language comprehension performance. Source reconstruction localized these effects in left temporal-parietal brain regions known to be associated with language processing and their right-hemisphere homologues.Our results support the notion that in-task attenuation of individual alpha power is related to the essential mechanisms of the underlying cognitive processes, rather than merely to general phenomena like attention or vigilance.

Translating experimental tasks that were designed to investigate differences between conditions at the group-level into valid and reliable instruments to measure individual differences in cognitive skills is challenging (Hedge et al., 2018; Rouder et al., 2019; Rouder & Haaf, 2019). For psycholinguists, the additional complexities associated with selecting or constructing language stimuli, and the need for appropriate well-matched baseline conditions make this endeavour particularly complex. In a typical experiment, a process-of-interest (e.g. ambiguity resolution) is targeted by contrasting performance in an experimental condition with performance in a well-matched control condition. In many cases, careful between-condition matching precludes the same participant from encountering all stimulus items. Unfortunately, solutions that work for group-level research (e.g. constructing counterbalanced experiment versions) are inappropriate for individual-differences designs. As a case study, we report an ambiguity resolution experiment that illustrates the steps that researchers can take to address this issue and assess whether their measurement instrument is both valid and reliable. On the basis of our findings, we caution against the widespread approach of using datasets from group-level studies to also answer important questions about individual differences.

How do violations of predictability and plausibility affect online language processing? How does it affect longer-term memory and learning when predictions are disconfirmed by plausible or implausible words? We investigated these questions using a self-paced sentence reading and noun recognition task. Critical sentences violated predictability or plausibility or both, for example, "Since Anne is afraid of spiders, she doesn't like going down into the ... basement (predictable, plausible), garden (unpredictable, somewhat plausible), moon (unpredictable, deeply implausible)." Results from sentence reading showed earlier-emerging effects of predictability violations on the critical noun, but later-emerging effects of plausibility violations after the noun. Recognition memory was exclusively enhanced for deeply implausible nouns. The earlier-emerging predictability effect indicates that having word form predictions disconfirmed is registered very early in the processing stream, irrespective of semantics. The later-emerging plausibility effect supports models that argue for a staged architecture of reading comprehension, where plausibility only affects a post-lexical integration stage. Our memory results suggest that, in order to facilitate memory and learning, a certain magnitude of prediction error is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an experiment on processing effort in sentence comprehension, preference hypotheses on word order and relative clause position were tested in German as a second or foreign language. The experiment involved 62 Slovenian students of German studies in Maribor as participants. The linguistic material consisted of 16 utterances, each with a main clause and a relative clause and each of them a subject-initial or object-initial. The relative clause could occur either after the first or second noun phrase. The procedure used was the self-paced reading paradigm. After each test unit, the participants were asked a comprehension question, either about the subject of the main clause or about the subject of the relative clause. The experiment confirmed the hypotheses that response accuracy to a comprehension question was higher when a clause was subject-initial and when the relative clause occurred after the first noun phrase of the main clause. The experiment did not confirm the assumed interaction between word order and position of the relative clause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Visual-scene depictions improve sentence comprehension regardless of age. • Visual depictions improve comprehension more in situation of high task demands. • Age-related changes in comprehension tend to be modulated by individual cognitive-ability levels. Evidence for age-related declines in syntactic comprehension is mixed, often modulated by concomitant cognitive changes. Further, while older (vs. younger) adults may make greater use of semantic information for sentence comprehension, it is unclear whether this extends to visual information. We investigated whether visual-scene depictions benefit sentence comprehension in adults with varying cognitive-ability levels. 153 participants (18–70 years) listened to German relative clauses with canonical/noncanonical structure ("This is the man who follows the woman"/"...whom the woman follows") presented in isolation or alongside visual-scene depictions, and answered agent-identification questions. Visual-scene depictions facilitated comprehension, especially when individuals with lower cognitive-ability levels encountered noncanonical structures. Individual differences in cognitive ability tended to modulate age-related changes in comprehension of utterances presented in isolation. These findings indicate beneficial effects of visual information for thematic-role comprehension – especially when task demands are high – and that cognitive-ability levels may modulate age-related changes in comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated how reflexives and object pronouns in Turkish are processed in aphasia as compared to a group of unimpaired controls. We aimed to understand (i) the moment-by-moment time course of processing reflexive forms, and (ii) and overt/null object pronouns in Turkish people with aphasia (PWA). We administered two eye-movement-monitoring during-listening experiments exploring resolution of reflexive variables (Experiment 1) and object pronouns (Experiment 2) in 6 PW A and their controls (n = 26). Our findings showed that interpretation of reflexive anaphors in Turkish is variable, and PWA are employing a non-local interpretation of reflexive anaphors to tackle down referential ambiguity in the absence of an ability to integrate contextual cues. Furthermore, PWA inappropriately considered inaccessible local antecedents for object pronouns, and they encountered limitations processing discourse antecedents. We argue that anaphoric processing profiles in aphasia face strong limitations by variable interpretability of pronominal reference and PWA's inability to integrate contextual cues to disambiguate the intended antecedents. • Interpretation of reflexive anaphors in Turkish is variable. • In aphasia integrating contextual information to resolve anaphoric reference is difficult. • Turkish PWA demonstrated a strong consideration towards non-local antecedents as a processing strategy. • Turkish PWA inappropriately considered a local antecedent for object pronouns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a case-study demonstrating the usefulness ofBayesian hierarchical mixture modelling for investigating cog-nitive processes. In sentence comprehension, it is widely as-sumed that the distance between linguistic co-dependents af-fects the latency of dependency resolution: the longer thedistance, the longer the retrieval time (the distance-based ac-count). An alternative theory, direct-access, assumes that re-trieval times are a mixture of two distributions: one distribu-tion represents successful retrievals (these are independent ofdependency distance) and the other represents an initial failureto retrieve the correct dependent, followed by a reanalysis thatleads to successful retrieval. We implement both models asBayesian hierarchical models and show that the direct-accessmodel explains Chinese relative clause reading time data betterthan the distance account.