Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
December 2024
Response times and their distributions serve as a powerful lens into cognitive processes. We present a novel statistical methodology called stratified distributional analysis (SDA) to quantitatively assess how key determinants of response times (word frequency and length) shape their distributions. Taking advantage of the availability of millions of lexical decision response times in the English Lexicon Project and the British Lexicon Project, we made important advances into the theoretical issue of linking response times and word frequency by analysing RT distributions as a function of word frequency and word length.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCan J Exp Psychol
September 2023
Ambiguous but canonical idioms () are processed fast in both their figurative ("die") and literal ("boot the pail") senses, although processing costs associated with meaning integration may emerge in postidiom regions. Modified versions () are processed more slowly than canonical configurations when intended figuratively. We hypothesized that modifications delay idiom recognition and prioritize the literal meaning, yielding processing costs when the context warrants a figurative interpretation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe literature on idioms often talks about an "idiom advantage," such that familiar idioms () are generally processed faster than comparable literal phrases (). More recently, researchers have explored the processing of idiom modification and while a few studies indicate that familiarity benefits the processing of modified forms, the extent of this facilitation is unknown. In an eye-tracking study, we explored whether familiar idioms and modified versions with 1 or 2 adjectives { } are processed faster than matched literal phrases {} when both were preceded by a biasing context.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA growing number of studies support the partial compositionality of idiomatic phrases, while idioms are thought to vary in their syntactic flexibility. Some idioms, like , have been classified as inflexible and incapable of being passivized without losing their figurative interpretation (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFResearch into recurrent, highly conventionalized "formulaic" sequences has shown a processing advantage compared to "novel" (non-formulaic) language. Studies of individual types of formulaic sequence often acknowledge the contribution of specific factors, but little work exists to compare the processing of different types of phrases with fundamentally different properties. We use eye-tracking to compare the processing of three types of formulaic phrases-idioms, binomials, and collocations-and consider whether overall frequency can explain the advantage for all three, relative to control phrases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLanguage comprehension is sensitive to the predictability of the upcoming information. Prediction allows for smooth, expedient and successful communication. While general discourse-based constraints have been investigated in detail, more specific phrase-level prediction has received little attention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHow sensitive is pronoun processing to expectancies based on real-world knowledge and language usage? The current study links research on the integration of gender stereotypes and number-mismatch to explore this question. It focuses on the use of them to refer to antecedents of different levels of gender-expectancy (low-cyclist, high-mechanic, known-spokeswoman). In a rating task, them is considered increasingly unnatural with greater gender-expectancy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrior research has reported incidental vocabulary acquisition with complete beginners in a foreign language (FL), within 8 exposures to auditory and written FL word forms presented with a picture depicting their meaning. However, important questions remain about whether acquisition occurs with fewer exposures to FL words in a multimodal situation and whether there is a repeated exposure effect. Here we report a study where the number of exposures to FL words in an incidental learning phase varied between 2, 4, 6, and 8 exposures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study used eye tracking to investigate the allocation of attention to multimodal stimuli during an incidental learning situation, as well as its impact on subsequent explicit learning. Participants were exposed to foreign language (FL) auditory words on their own, in conjunction with written native language (NL) translations, or with both written NL translations and pictures. Incidental acquisition of FL words was assessed the following day through an explicit learning task where participants learned to recognize translation equivalents, as well as one week later through recall and translation recognition tests.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article reports the findings of an empirical study that uses eye-tracking and follow-up interviews as methods to investigate how participants read body language clusters in novels by Charles Dickens. The study builds on previous corpus stylistic work that has identified patterns of body language presentation as techniques of characterisation in Dickens (Mahlberg, 2013). The article focuses on the reading of 'clusters', that is, repeated sequences of words.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBehav Res Methods
June 2014
Formal and semantic overlap across languages plays an important role in bilingual language processing systems. In the present study, Japanese (first language; L1)-English (second language; L2) bilinguals rated 193 Japanese-English word pairs, including cognates and noncognates, in terms of phonological and semantic similarity. We show that the degree of cross-linguistic overlap varies, such that words can be more or less "cognate," in terms of their phonological and semantic overlap.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEven in languages that do not share script, bilinguals process cognates faster than matched noncognates in a range of tasks. The current research more fully explores what underpins the cognate 'advantage' in different script bilinguals (Japanese-English). To do this, instead of the more traditional binary cognate/noncognate distinction, the current study uses continuous measures of phonological and semantic overlap, L2 (second language) proficiency and lexical variables (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFirst language acquisition requires relatively little effort compared to foreign language acquisition and happens more naturally through informal learning. Informal exposure can also benefit foreign language learning, although evidence for this has been limited to speech perception and production. An important question is whether informal exposure to spoken foreign language also leads to vocabulary learning through the creation of form-meaning links.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExecutive control abilities and lexical access speed in Stroop performance were investigated in English monolinguals and two groups of bilinguals (English-Chinese and Chinese-English) in their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Predictions were based on a bilingual cognitive advantage hypothesis, implicating cognitive control ability as the critical factor determining Stroop interference; and two bilingual lexical disadvantage hypotheses, focusing on lexical access speed. Importantly, each hypothesis predicts different response patterns in a Stroop task manipulating stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study investigated effects of cross-language similarity on within- and between-language Stroop interference and facilitation in three groups of trilinguals. Trilinguals were either proficient in three languages that use the same-script (alphabetic in German-English-Dutch trilinguals), two similar scripts and one different script (Chinese and alphabetic scripts in Chinese-English-Malay trilinguals), or three completely different scripts (Arabic, Chinese, and alphabetic in Uyghur-Chinese-English trilinguals). The results revealed a similar magnitude of within-language Stroop interference for the three groups, whereas between-language interference was modulated by cross-language similarity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, we investigated automatic translation from English to Chinese and subsequent morphological decomposition of translated Chinese compounds. In two lexical decision tasks, Chinese-English bilinguals responded to English target words that were preceded by masked unrelated primes presented for 59 ms. Unbeknownst to participants, the Chinese translations of the words in each critical pair consisted of a fully opaque compound word (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConflict detection and resolution is crucial in a cognitive task like the Stroop task. Previous studies have identified an early negativity component (N(inc)) as a prominent marker of Stroop conflict in event-related potentials (ERPs). However, to what extent this ERP component reflects conflict detection and/or resolution is still unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAre speakers sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in language? The authors report an eye-tracking study that investigates this by examining the processing of multiword sequences that differ in phrasal frequency by native and proficient nonnative English speakers. Participants read sentences containing 3-word binomial phrases (bride and groom) and their reversed forms (groom and bride), which are identical in syntax and meaning but that differ in phrasal frequency. Mixed-effects modeling revealed that native speakers and nonnative speakers, across a range of proficiencies, are sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in English.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn addition to information about phonology, morphology and syntax, lexical entries contain semantic information about participants (e.g., Agent).
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