Naoko Witzel

Deeper than shallow: Evidence for structure-based parsing biases in second-language sentence processing

This study examines the reading patterns of native speakers (NSs) and high-level (Chinese) nonnative speakers (NNSs) on three English sentence types involving temporarily ambiguous structural configurations. The reading patterns on each sentence type indicate that both NSs and NNSs were biased toward specific structural interpretations. These results are interpreted as evidence that both first-language and second-language (L2) sentence comprehension is guided (at least in part) by structure-based parsing strategies and, thus as counterevidence to the claim that NNSs are largely limited to rudimentary (or “shallow”) syntactic computation during online L2 sentence processing.

Comparisons of online reading paradigms: eye tracking, moving-window, and maze.

This study compares four methodologies used to examine online sentence processing during reading. Specifically, self-paced, non-cumulative, moving-window reading (Just et al. in J Exp Psychol Gen 111:228–238, 1982), eye tracking (see e.g., Rayner in Q J Exp Psychol 62:1457–1506, 2009), and two versions of the maze task (Forster et al. in Behav Res Methods 41:163–171, 2009)—the lexicality maze and the grammaticality maze—were used to investigate the processing of sentences containing temporary structural ambiguities. Of particular interest were (i) whether each task was capable of revealing processing differences on these sentences and (ii) whether these effects were indicated precisely at the predicted word/region. Although there was considerable overlap in the general pattern of results from the four tasks, there were also clear differences among them in terms of the strength and timing of the observed effects. In particular, excepting sentences that tap into clause-closure commitments, both maze task versions provided robust, “localized” indications of incremental sentence processing difficulty relative to self-paced reading and eye tracking.

Is banara really a word

Bowers, Davis, and Hanley (Bowers, J. S., Davis, C. J., & Hanley, D. A. (2005). Interfering neighbours: The impact of novel word learning on the identification of visually similar words. Cognition, 97(3), B45-B54) reported that if participants were trained to type nonwords such as banara, subsequent semantic categorization responses to similar words such as banana were delayed. This was taken as direct experimental support for a process of lexical competition during word recognition. This interpretation assumes that banara has been lexicalized, which predicts that masked form priming for items such as banara-banana should be reduced or eliminated. An experiment is reported showing that the trained novel words produced the same amount of priming as untrained nonwords on both the first and the second day of training, suggesting that the interference observed by Bowers et al was not due to word-on-word competition.

Transposed Letter Priming with Horizontal and Vertical Text in Japanese and English Readers.

It is well established that in masked priming, a target word (e.g., JUDGE) is primed more effectively by a transposed letter (TL) prime (e.g., jugde) than by an orthographic control prime (e.g., junpe). This is inconsistent with the slot coding schemes used in many models of visual word recognition. Several alternative coding schemes have been proposed in which special bigram detectors for frequently occurring nonadjacent letter combinations are developed as a product of perceptual learning. In order to examine this perceptual learning hypothesis, we asked whether bigram detectors are defined in terms of visuospatial coordinates. Japanese-English bilinguals who were equally familiar with horizontal and vertical text in Japanese demonstrated strong TL priming in both orientations when reading Japanese words, but, when reading English words, the evidence for vertical TL priming was not as strong. However, native English speakers showed a clear TL priming effect with vertically presented English words despite minimal exposure to vertical text, which is not consistent with a perceptual learning account. It is proposed instead that the initial letter array is transformed into an abstract ordinal code (first to last) regardless of orientation and that the speed with which this transformation is carried out depends on the familiarity of the script.

Orthographic and Phonological Form Interference during Silent Reading.

This study reports 2 eye-tracking experiments investigating form interference during sentence-level silent reading. The items involved reduced and unreduced relative clauses (RCs) with words that were orthographically and phonologically similar (injection-infection; O+P+, Experiment 1) as well as with words that were orthographically similar, but phonologically dissimilar (laughter-daughter; O+P-, Experiment 2). Both experiments revealed syntactic processing disruptions for reduced RCs. Processing difficulty was also observed at the form-related word in both experiments under first-pass and second-pass reading measures. These form-interference effects did not interact with structural processing difficulty under first-pass measures in either experiment. Under second-pass time, there were larger processing disruptions for reduced RCs in O+P+ sentences relative to their controls. This was not the case, however, for O+P- sentences. These results suggest 2 components to form-interference effects during silent reading: (a) an early, low-level component that is driven in large part by visual form overlap and (b) a component that relates to late stages of interpretation and that is associated more closely with phonological form overlap.

The Processing of Japanese Control Sentences

This study investigates the processing of empty embedded clause subjects in Japanese Control sentences. In these sentences, the information necessary to specify the antecedent of the empty subject is often not available until after the embedded clause, at the Control verb. Therefore, the present study examines the following questions: (a) Is an antecedent provisionally assigned to the empty embedded clause subject in Japanese Control sentences before Control information becomes available? (b) If so, which noun phrase – the main clause subject or object – is assigned as this antecedent? The experiment consisted of a region-by-region, self-paced, non-cumulative moving-window reading task. Japanese native speakers were tested on four sentence types: (a) Subject Control sentences with empty embedded clause subjects (or SC/empty sentences), (b) Subject Control sentences with overt embedded clause subjects (or SC/overt sentences), (c) Object Control sentences with empty embedded clause subjects (or OC/empty sentences) and (d) Object Control sentences with overt embedded clause subjects (or OC/overt sentences). The reading time (RT) patterns on these sentences were consistent with an Object Control bias in the provisional assignment of an antecedent to the empty embedded clause subject. Specifically, at the Control verb, RTs were significantly longer for SC/empty sentences than for SC/overt sentences; however, there was no difference between the RTs for OC/empty and OC/overt sentences at this verb. These results suggest processing difficulty at the point of Control disambiguation only for SC/empty sentences. We interpret these findings as further support for incrementality in the parsing of Japanese sentences in general and in the processing of Japanese filler-gap structures in particular.

Incremental Sentence Processing in Japanese: A Maze Investigation into Scrambled and Control Sentences

This study investigates preverbal structural and semantic processing in Japanese, a head-final language, using the maze task. Two sentence types were tested—simple scrambled sentences (Experiment 1) and control sentences (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 showed that even for simple, mono-clausal Japanese sentences, (1) there are online processing costs associated with parsing noncanonical word orders and (2) these costs are incurred during the incremental integration of constituents into developing sentence representations. Experiment 2 indicated (1) that antecedents are provisionally assigned to empty subjects in Japanese control sentences before verb information becomes available and (2) that this process is guided by an object control bias. Taken together, these findings are interpreted to suggest an important role for preverbal analysis in the processing of displaced constituents and of referential properties for empty elements in head-final languages.

Script differences and masked translation priming: Evidence from Hindi-English bilinguals

This study reports on two experiments investigating the effects of script differences on masked translation priming in highly proficient early Hindi-English bilinguals. In Experiment 1 (the cross-script experiment), L1 Hindi was presented in the standard Devanagari script, while L2 English was presented in the Roman alphabet. In Experiment 2 (the same-script experiment), both L1 Hindi and L2 English were presented in the Roman alphabet. Both experiments revealed translation priming in the L1-L2 direction. However, L2-L1 priming was obtained in the same-script experiment, but not in the cross-script experiment. These findings are discussed in relation to the orthographic cue hypothesis as well as hypotheses that hold that script differences influence the distance between the L1 and L2 in lexical space and/or cross-language lateral inhibition. We also provide alternative accounts for these results in terms of how orthographic cues provided by L1 targets might lead to the discontinuation or disruption of processing for L2 primes.

Transposed-Letter Priming Across Inflectional Morpheme Boundaries

This study reports findings from two experiments testing whether a transposed-letter (TL) priming effect can be obtained when the transposition occurs across morphological boundaries. Previous studies have primarily tested derivationally complex words or compound words, but have not examined a more rule-based and productive morphological structure, i.e., inflectionally complex words, using masked priming. Experiment 1 tested TL priming with nonword primes and inflected targets (FOCUSING). Nonword primes were formed by transposing letters either within the root morpheme (fcousing) or across two morphemes (focuisng). Experiment 2 used the same nonword primes, but had the root words as targets (FOCUS). Both experiments showed similar TL priming effects for within-morpheme and across-boundary positions, indicating that morphological decomposition takes place only after letter positions in a word have been assigned. This finding provides additional evidence to previous research testing derived and compound words showing TL priming regardless of the position of transposition.