Journal of memory and language最新文献

According to the communicative efficiency hypothesis, speakers should produce more linguistic material when comprehension difficulty increases. Here, we investigate a potential source of comprehension difficulty – listeners’ language proficiency – on speakers’ productions, using referential choice as a case study. Referential choice is influenced by communicative efficiency: pronouns are used less than full noun phrases (NPs) for less predictable referents (Tily & Piantadosi, 2009). However, the extent to which it is influenced by the listener is debated. Here, we compare participants’ descriptions of the same picture book to children, adult L2 learners and adult native speakers. We find that speakers use more full NPs when their interlocutors are learners – child and adult learners alike, illustrating an effect of listeners’ proficiency (regardless of age) on production choices. Importantly, the increased use of full NPs relative to pronouns is found controlling for discourse-related differences (e.g., previous mention), suggesting a direct relation between listeners’ perceived language proficiency and referential choice.

The issue of whether lexical processing occurs serially or in parallel has been a central and contentious issue in respect of models of eye movement control in reading for well over a decade. A critical question in this regard concerns whether lexical parafoveal-on-foveal effects exist in reading. Because Chinese is an unspaced and densely packed language, readers may process parafoveal words to a greater extent than they do in spaced alphabetic languages. In two experiments using a novel Stroop boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975), participants read sentences containing a single-character color-word whose preview was manipulated (identity or pseudocharacter, printed in black [no-color], or in a color congruent or incongruent with the character meaning). Two boundaries were used, one positioned two characters before the target and one immediately to the left of the target. The previews changed from black to color and then back to black as the eyes crossed the first and then the second boundary respectively. In Experiment 1 four color-words (red, green, yellow and blue) were used and in Experiment 2 only red and green color-words were used as targets. Both experiments showed very similar patterns such that reading times were increased for colored compared to no-color previews indicating a parafoveal visual interference effect. Most importantly, however, there were no robust interactive effects. Preview effects were comparable for congruent and incongruent color previews at the pretarget region when the data were combined from both experiments. These results favour serial processing accounts and indicate that even under very favourable experimental conditions, lexical semantic parafoveal-on-foveal effects are minimal.

Arndt and Hirshman (1998) used MINERVA 2 to simulate true and false recognition in DRM-style lists and found that the model was able to capture many features of the empirical data. Here, we first replicate their simulations, but using empirically structured vectors derived from Latent Semantic Analysis rather than the randomly generated vectors characteristic of MINERVA 2. We report that the model still captures the DRM effect with fewer free parameters. We then extend our analyses to true and false recognition for full sentences and metaphorical expressions. Using a simple bag-of-words representation for sentences, we find that the MINERVA 2 model captures classic sentence false recognition findings from Bransford and Frank (1971) and a more recent finding from Reid and Katz (2018a) that demonstrates false recognition of unstudied sentences that share a metaphorical but not literal theme to studied sentences. These simulations provide evidence that an instance-based memory model, when amalgamated with structured semantic representations from a distributional semantic model, can account for true and false recognition across different types of language experiences.

A striking feature of speakers of Chinese is the fact that their immediate verbal memory span tends to be substantially greater than is found for other languages. This is not limited to digits, nor is it is it adequately accounted for in terms of spoken duration. We explore two sources of this potential linguistic advantage, one is in terms of supplementary visual coding. We use the visual similarity effect to assess this hypothesis finding little support for its importance. The second approach assesses the role of subvocal articulation, using articulatory suppression which has been shown to remove the impact of phonological similarity on the recall of visually presented verbal sequences. We find that the phonological similarity effect remains in both Mandarin and Cantonese speakers, suggesting that Chinese language speakers may be able to maintain a phonological representation of the material despite concurrent articulation of an irrelevant utterance. We discuss a possible mechanism and its theoretical implications. Finally, we speculate that this enhanced capacity may reflect an adaptation to the demands of learning to map the Chinese writing system onto a complex tonal language.

Current models suggest that pronoun comprehension is guided by expectations about who or what will be mentioned (Arnold, 1998; Kehler & Rohde, 2013; Hartshorne et al., 2015; Brocher et al., 2018), which we call referential predictability. Yet there is disagreement about whether these expectations explain all types of discourse biases, and in particular some scholars suggest that the subject bias is unrelated to referential predictability (Kehler & Rohde, 2013; Fukumura & van Gompel, 2015). Moreover, the role of expectation has not been broadly tested against the numerous constraints known to affect pronoun comprehension, and no study has tested whether expectation is related to social constraints like gaze and pointing. In eight experiments we systematically test how both pronoun comprehension and prediction judgments are influenced by four constraints: (1) the subject bias in joint-action predicates like Ana went hiking with Liz; (2) both the goal and subject biases in transfer predicates (Ana threw the ball to Liz or Ana got the ball from Liz); (3) pointing while gazing, and (4) gazing. We replicate and extend the known effects of these constraints on pronoun comprehension. Critically, we find that most of these constraints also affect prediction judgments, but the subject bias is inconsistent across verb types. Results support models in which referential expectation affects pronoun comprehension.

Most research on multilingual language control has focused on a bilingual’s first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Studies on third language (L3) acquisition suggest that, despite the L1 being more proficient, L3 learners experience more L2 than L1 interference. However, little is known about how a trilingual’s L2 and L3 interact after initial stages of language learning. In the current study (Experiment 1: 30 Spanish-Basque-English trilinguals; Experiment 2: 50 English-French-Spanish trilinguals), participants completed a speeded naming task to assess cross-language intrusions (e.g., using the Spanish “perro” instead of the French “chien”). Both experiments showed more L3 than L1 intrusions during L2 naming. Furthermore, using two different tasks, we assessed if this cross-language interference was related to language inhibition. Both experiments suggested that trilinguals inhibited their L1 more strongly than their L3. Together, this suggests that a trilingual’s non-native language might experience more interference from another non-native language than from their L1, possibly because trilinguals apply more inhibition over their L1.

Retrieval practice, the act of recalling information on a practice test, leads to better long-term memory than non-testing study activities (the testing effect). This effect occurs even when the contexts of the practice and final test differ, suggesting that retrieval practice fosters transferable learning. For example, practice tests involving the recall of targets (A-?) not only enhance performance on final tests of the targets (A-?), but this effect can also extend to tests of the non-recalled cues (?-B). Simple memory tests can also facilitate the inference of underlying rules or principles that can be used to answer completely new questions or problems. However, these transfer effects have been overwhelmingly demonstrated with verbal materials. Further, research suggests that transfer effects diminish as the type of information tested during the practice and final tests diverge. In the present study, we explored the influence of retrieval practice on paired associates consisting of the names and visuospatial diagrams of molecules. In two experiments using a standard paired-associate learning paradigm, practice tests of name targets (?-diagram) or diagram targets (name-?) did not enhance performance on final tests of their respective cues. In a final experiment using a category induction paradigm, we found a benefit of retrieval practice on the memorization of cues and the induction of underlying rules simultaneously.

Four structural priming experiments investigated whether the lexical boost is due to the repeated head verb of the primed structure or due to the repetition of any verb, testing structural priming of ditransitive structures (The hotel owner decided to loan the tourist a tent/a tent to the tourist). In Experiments 1–3, we manipulated the repetition of the matrix verb (decided) that is not the syntactic head in the primed structure. The results showed abstract structural priming of the embedded ditransitive structure but the repetition of the matrix verb did not boost the priming. In addition to manipulating the repetition of the matrix verb, we also manipulated the head verb of the primed structure (loan) in Experiment 4. It showed a lexical boost with the repetition of the head verb but no boost with the repetition of the matrix verb. These results are consistent with the residual activation model, which only predicts a boost from the verb that is the head of the primed structure. They do not support models which predict that the repetition of any lexical material in a sentence boosts priming.