Balancing Effort and Information Transmission During Language Acquisition: Evidence From Word Order and Case Marking

Across languages of the world, some grammatical patterns have been argued to be more common than expected by chance. These are sometimes referred to as (statistical) language universals. One such universal is the correlation between constituent order freedom and the presence of a case system in a language. Here, we explore whether this correlation can be explained by a bias to balance production effort and informativity of cues to grammatical function. Two groups of learners were presented with miniature artificial languages containing optional case marking and either flexible or fixed constituent order. Learners of the flexible order language used case marking significantly more often. This result parallels the typological correlation between constituent order flexibility and the presence of case marking in a language and provides a possible explanation for the historical development of Old English to Modern English, from flexible constituent order with case marking to relatively fixed order without case marking. In addition, learners of the flexible order language conditioned case marking on constituent order, using more case marking with the cross‐linguistically less frequent order, again mirroring typological data. These results suggest that some cross‐linguistic generalizations originate in functionally motivated biases operating during language learning.     

阅读句子过程中词跳读的眼动研究

采用EyeLink-Ⅱ眼动记录仪,探讨了大学生阅读句子时的词跳读率.实验采用2(语境预测性:可预测语境、不可预测语境)×2(词语熟悉度:高熟悉度、低熟悉度)的两因素重复测量设计.结果发现:(1)中文阅读中的词跳读率存在着语境效应,在可预测语境下对高熟悉度词的跳读率为45%,对低熟悉度词的为27%;在不可预测语境下对高熟悉度词的跳读率为10%,对低熟悉度词的为8%;(2)中文阅读的词跳读率存在着词汇的主观熟悉度效应,不论在何种语境下,高熟悉度词的跳读率为28%,而低熟悉度词的跳读率为18%;(3)中文阅读中,语境预测性和词汇的主观熟悉度共同作用于词跳读.     

Case marking in the Parsing of Complement Sentences: Evidence from Eye Movements

An eye-tracking experiment investigated the role of case-marking in parsing. We manipulated the case of pronouns in reduced complement sentences like I recognized you and your family would be unhappy here and I recognized she and her family would be unhappy here , in which the nominative pronoun she immediately disambiguates the sentences, in contrast to the ambiguous you . The nominative pronoun she disambiguates the sentence because I recognised she is ungrammatical, and thus she and her family must be the subject of an embedded sentence and not the NP-object of the preceding verb. Subjects took longer to read she and her family than you and your family during initial processing. The pattern reversed at the disambiguating phrase would be . Unambiguous control sentences containing the complementizer that did not produce case-marking effects. These results demonstrate very rapid effects of case-marking on parsing. Either case information is used immediately, or it is employed after an extremely short delay. We discuss implications for current theories of parsing.     

中文句子阅读中语义信息对眼动预视效应的影响

采用句子为阅读材料,变化句子中一个单字词形成语义连贯与语义违背两种实验条件,通过两个眼动实验探讨中文句子阅读中预视效应的产生是否受语义信息的影响。实验一运用自然阅读范式,考察当语义连贯与违背两类信息被读者直接注视时,读者眼动模式的变化。结果发现,在语义连贯与违背两种条件下,读者的眼动模式在目标位置立即产生差异,违背条件下首次注视时间更长,说明中文句子理解中语义加工可以进行得十分即时。实验二运用边界技术,使实验一的语义连贯与违背两类关键字只呈现在预视位置上,当读者的注视点越过边界时,两类预视字均变为另一个与句子意义连贯的目标字。结果发现,语义违背预视条件下,读者对预视位置将进行更长时间的加工。上述结果表明,中文句子阅读过程中,语义信息可以对预视效应产生影响     

词汇识别中句子与课文语境效应的研究进展

介绍了词汇识别中有关句子与课文语境效应的三种理论模型及其语境效应的研究方法。同时作者指出了今后研究中需注意的问题     

中文阅读中词汇加工的年老化:眼动证据

本研究探讨年老化影响中文阅读中词汇加工过程的特点,包含两项实验。实验一探讨老年与青年读者在词频效应上的差异,实验二探讨老年与青年读者在语境预测性效应上的差异。结果发现：（1）相对于青年读者,老年读者注视目标词汇的时间较长、再注视回视较多、跳读较少;（2）在首次注视时间、凝视时间和眼跳参数上,年龄组别与词频之间交互作用不显著,但对目标词汇的总注视时间上,年龄组别与词频之间交互作用显著;（3）在所有注视时间指标和回视概率上,均发现年龄组别与语境预测性影响之间交互作用显著。结论：中文老年读者阅读时的词汇加工效率低于青年人;中文阅读中眼跳策略与词汇加工的年老化模式有语言特殊性特点。     

年老化对中文阅读眼动控制的影响:来自词长和语境预测性效应的证据

本研究通过对比老年与青年人在阅读中词长、词频和语境预测性效应上的差异,探讨中文阅读中眼动控制的年老化问题。结果发现:(1)词长的年龄主效应显著,注视时间和首次注视位置指标上年龄与词长的交互作用显著;(2)在注视时间指标上发现了显著的词频和语境预测性效应,年龄与语境预测性之间交互作用显著。综合而言,中文阅读中老年读者的词长效应和语境预测性效应不同于青年读者,由此可见,视觉功能和词汇加工功能衰退都是中文阅读眼动控制年老化的诱发原因。     

阅读目标和阅读任务对读者眼动的影响(中文)

We review two studies examining task effects on eye guidance during reading. The first study investigated effects of reading perspective on eye behavior in reading. It demonstrated that both the initial encoding of words as well as the later integration stage of wrapping up the sentence meaning are influenced by the reading perspective. Early effects of reading perspective were observed both in saccadic programming and in fixation times and were primarily seen when reading a text of familiar content. In the second study, effects of reading task were examined by comparing eye movements between proofreading and reading for comprehension. Task effects appeared very early in the processing time line; both temporal and spatial aspects of eye movements were affected. Taking together, the two studies demonstrate that readers make a global adjustment to eye behavior on the basis of reading task or goal.     

汉语词汇语音中介效应的眼动研究

使用美国应用科学实验室生产的504型眼动仪,采用语音中介启动范式,对汉语词汇识别是否存在语音中介效应进行考察。结果发现：（1）被试对语音中介词的首次注视点持续时间、凝视时间均显著高于控制条件;（2）当语音中介词为低频词时,被试对语音中介启动词的总注视时间显著高于控制类型;（3）语音中介类型的正确率显著低于控制类型;（4）实验结果表明,汉语词汇识别中存在语音中介效应。     

词边界信息对发展性阅读障碍儿童朗读和默读影响的眼动研究

以发展性阅读障碍儿童及与其年龄和阅读能力相匹配的儿童为对象,要求他们朗读或默读正常呈现或以词间空格形式呈现的文本,采用眼动仪记录儿童的眼动轨迹,目的是探讨词边界信息的引入对三组儿童朗读和默读的影响。结果发现,相较于正常儿童,阅读障碍儿童需要更多的总注视时间和总注视次数,更短的平均眼跳距离;与默读相比,所有儿童在朗读方式下的阅读加工更困难;相较于默读,词边界信息更多促进了儿童的朗读。     

Processing Italian Relative Clauses: Working Memory Span and Word Order Effects on RTs

In this study, the authors aim to clarify whether the subject–object asymmetry in relative clause comprehension is due to the use of parsing strategies (Active Filler Theory) or to a greater memory load generated by object sentences. Two experiments investigate how individual differences in working memory span may influence the reading times of relative sentences in Italian, a language characterized by a flexible structure. The results of Experiment 1 indicate that object extraction is more complex than subject extraction when sentences have a canonical structure. Furthermore, low-span participants have particular difficulties with object relative sentence comprehension. The results of Experiment 2 show that subject-relative clauses with uncanonical structures are more complex to understand than object-relative clauses, and low-span participants have more difficulties than high-span participants in elaborating both subject and object relative clauses. These data seem to be coherent with the Active Filler Theory.     

Effects of Surprisal and Locality on Danish Sentence Processing: An Eye-Tracking Investigation

An eye-tracking experiment in Danish investigates two dominant accounts of sentence processing: locality-based theories that predict a processing advantage for sentences where the distance between the major syntactic heads is minimized, and the surprisal theory which predicts that processing time increases with big changes in the relative entropy of possible parses, sometimes leading to anti-locality effects. We consider both lexicalised surprisal, expressed in conditional trigram probabilities, and syntactic surprisal expressed in the manipulation of the expectedness of the second NP in Danish constructions with two postverbal NP-objects. An eye-tracking experiment showed a clear advantage for local syntactic relations, with only a marginal effect of lexicalised surprisal and no effect of syntactic surprisal. We conclude that surprisal has a relatively marginal effect, which may be clearest for verbs in verb-final languages, while locality is a robust predictor of sentence processing.     

The Effects of Word Identity,Case, and SOA on Word Priming in a Subliminal Context

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - It is widely assumed that subliminal word priming is case insensitive and that a short SOA (<?100 ms) is required to observe any...     

The Effects of Word-Order and Case Marking Information on the Processing of Japanese

Many studies in processing English report that verb information plays a significant role in processing the rest of the sentence (e.g., Boland & Tanenhaus, 1991). Japanese is subject-object-verb (SOV), head-final language with the phenomena of scrambling and phonologically null pronouns. The fact that verb information does not become available until the end of a clause leads one to ask whether other types of information may be utilized in the on-line processing of Japanese. The current study investigated whether word order and case markers play a role. Overall, no effect of word order was observed, even though the frequency of the scrambled sentences was low. Experiment 1 found no extra processing load in processing scrambled sentences. In Experiment 2, no effect of word order was found in the parser's decision making in computing a syntactic structure prior to the verb. On the other hand. Experiment 3 found that the parser was sensitive to the variety of case-marked arguments. The results of the three experiments are more congruent with the nonconfigurational structure than with the configurational structure at the stage of preverbal syntactic processing in Japanese.     

汉语双字词句知觉广度的眼动研究

阅读知觉广度通常指阅读者在阅读文本过程中每次注视能获取有用视觉信息的范围。既往的汉语知觉广度的研究一般把单字作为基本的知觉呈现单元,但在某些呈现条件下,此类呈现方式会导致阅读过程中的语义加工的完整性被破坏。本研究采用眼动追踪技术,使用移动窗口范式和中央凹掩蔽范式,使用双字词句作为阅读材料,双字词作为基本的知觉呈现单元,探讨在保证知觉呈现单元语义完整性的基础上大学生的汉语阅读知觉广度。实验一采用移动窗口范式,结果发现,知觉广度范围为注视词左侧1个双字词及右侧1-2个双字词的空间。实验二采用中央凹掩蔽范式,结果验证了实验一的研究结果。该结果表明,在汉语阅读过程中,以双字词为基本的视觉呈现单元,较既往研究中单字为基本呈现单元的情况,更好地保证了阅读中语义的完整性,从而获得了更大的知觉范围。该结果建立于视觉呈现单元的语义完整性的基础上,是对现有的汉语阅读知觉广度理论的完善和扩展。     

词汇选择中句子语境效应的研究

通过两个词汇选择实验,采用快速选择法对汉语句子语境作用作了考察.结果发现句子语境位置及语境与目标词之间的语法关系对于词汇选择起着重要的作用.这些结果表明(1)前语境为被试对随后出现的目标词有一种预期效应,它对词汇选择的促进作用大于延迟语境;(2)当句子或短语不符合句法时,语境的效应很弱,语境效应的产生依赖于句法、语义等高层次的表征.     

词边界信息在中文词汇学习与识别中的作用:眼动研究的证据

空格作为英语等大多数拼音文字阅读中的词边界信息,能帮助读者成功地从文本的一连串的字母中切分出词,促进了词汇的习得和识别。然而在中文里没有明确的词边界信息,那么提供词边界信息(即加入空格)能否促进中文词汇识别或帮助读者学习新词?本文将从空格对成人、儿童和留学生在阅读中眼动控制的影响来回顾和总结词边界信息在中文词汇识别与学习中的作用。在此基础上,提出对建立汉字与词汇识别模型、眼动控制模型以及对指导汉语教学工作的启示。     

Lossy-Context Surprisal: An Information-Theoretic Model of Memory Effects in Sentence Processing

A key component of research on human sentence processing is to characterize the processing difficulty associated with the comprehension of words in context. Models that explain and predict this difficulty can be broadly divided into two kinds, expectation-based and memory-based. In this work, we present a new model of incremental sentence processing difficulty that unifies and extends key features of both kinds of models. Our model, lossy-context surprisal, holds that the processing difficulty at a word in context is proportional to the surprisal of the word given a lossy memory representation of the context—that is, a memory representation that does not contain complete information about previous words. We show that this model provides an intuitive explanation for an outstanding puzzle involving interactions of memory and expectations: language-dependent structural forgetting, where the effects of memory on sentence processing appear to be moderated by language statistics. Furthermore, we demonstrate that dependency locality effects, a signature prediction of memory-based theories, can be derived from lossy-context surprisal as a special case of a novel, more general principle called information locality.     

Development of Lexical and Sentence Level Context Effects for Dominant and Subordinate Word Meanings of Homonyms

Nine-ten-and twelve-year-old children (N = 75) read aloud dominant, subordinate or ambiguous bias sentences (N = 120) that ended in a homonym (BALL). After the sentence (1,000 ms), children read aloud targets that were related to the dominant (BAT) or subordinate (DANCE) meaning of the homonym or control targets. Participants were also divided into three reading skill groups based on an independent measure of single word oral reading accuracy. There were three main developmental and reading skill findings. First, 9-year-olds and low skill readers showed lexical level facilitation in accuracy. Second, 9- and 10-year-olds or low and moderate skill readers showed lexical level facilitation in reaction time. Third, 12-year-olds or high skill readers showed sentence level facilitation in reaction time with high skill readers additionally showing sentence level inhibition in reaction time. These results show that lexical level context effects decreased and that sentence level context effects increased with development and skill. These results are discussed in terms of connectionist models of visual word recognition that incorporate distributed attractor principles.     

汉语句子理解中句法启动机制的眼动和ERP研究

语言产生的句法启动效应在近20年得到较深入研究。那么, 语言理解和语言产生中, 句法启动效应具有相同的加工机制吗？近些年, 研究者考察了印欧语系语言理解中的启动效应, 但还存在较多争论。这究竟是句法效应, 还是策略或者语义效应, 是词汇驱动还是词汇独立的？而且, 这是人类语言理解的语系特性还是普遍特性？单独采用行为技术、眼动技术或者ERP技术很难为这些争论提供坚实的实验证据和较深入的理论解释。鉴于此, 本项目拟采用眼动和ERP结合的技术, 从心理学、语言学和认知神经科学等多学科交叉的视角考查汉语句子理解的句法启动效应。通过分析眼动和ERP实验提供的一致性和差异性证据, 本项目力图阐明和揭示汉语句子理解中句法启动效应的认知特点和机制, 检验内隐学习理论和论元结构理论在解释句法启动效应时的适用性。