Looks at what isn't there: eye movements on a blank screen when processing negation in a first and a second language.

Is negation more difficult to process than affirmation? If it is, does processing negation in a second language (L2) compound the difficulty compared to the first language (L1)? This article addresses the issues of difficulties in processing different types of negation in the L1 and L2 by looking at the differences in the ways in which comprehenders anticipate upcoming visual information during sentence processing. Using a blank-screen paradigm, we recorded eye fixations of Croatian native speakers and Croatian learners of English while they were anticipating matching or mismatching pictures to sentences with various types of negation in L1 (Croatian) and L2 (English). Using a between-group design, we manipulated sentence polarity (affirmative vs.

Mental simulation of the factual and the illusory in negation processing: evidence from anticipatory eye movements on a blank screen.

How do comprehenders process negative statements such as The fish is not jumping out of the water? Opinions vary. Some argue for two steps, namely that processing starts off with the representation of the positive/illusory [fish jumping out of the water] and then shifts to the (f)actual. To test this idea, we measured fixations on the factual (fish not jumping) versus the illusory (fish jumping) during auditory processing of negation and affirmation.

Propositional Density in Spoken and Written Language of Czech-Speaking Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Purpose: Propositional density (PD) is a measure of content richness in language production that declines in normal aging and more profoundly in dementia. The present study aimed to develop a PD scoring system for Czech and use it to compare PD in language productions of older people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and control participants matched on age, gender, and education.

Method: Groups of patients with aMCI and cognitively healthy control participants (N = 20 each) provided short spoken and written language samples.