Masked Morphological Priming and Sensitivity to the Statistical Structure of form-to-Meaning mapping in L2

In one’s native language, visual word identification is based on early morphological analysis and is sensitive to the statistical structure of the mapping between form and meaning (Orthography–to–Semantic Consistency, OSC). How these mechanisms apply to a second language is much less clear. We recruited L1 Italian-L2 English speakers for a masked priming task where the relationship between prime and target was morphologically transparent, e.g., employer–EMPLOY, morphologically opaque, e.g., corner-CORN, or merely orthographic, e.g., brothel–BROTH. Critically, participants underwent thorough testing of their lexical, morphological, phonological, spelling, and semantic proficiency in their second language. By exploring a wide spectrum of L2 proficiency, we showed that this factor critically qualifies L2 priming. Genuine morphological facilitation only arises as proficiency grows, while orthographic priming shrinks as L2 competence increases. OSC was also found to modulate priming and interact with proficiency, providing an alternative way of describing the transparency continuum in derivational morphology. Overall, these data illustrate the trajectory towards a fully consolidated L2 lexicon and show that masked priming and sensitivity to OSC are key trackers of this process

Word knowledge and word usage - Representations and processes in the mental lexicon

The final NetWordS Conference, held on the 30th and 31st of March, and 1st of April 2015 in Pisa, was convened by Prof. Pier Marco Bertinetto, Dr. Vito Pirrelli and Dr. Claudia Marzi, and brought together 91 participants (scholars, Post-Docs, PhD students) from numerous European, and some non-European, countries. A 3-day schedule involved all participants in a focused, cross-disciplinary discussion on representations and processes in the mental lexicon. People are known to understand, memorise and parse words in a context-sensitive, opportunistic way, by caching their most habitual and productive processing patterns into routinized behavioural schemes, similarly to what we observe for sequences of coordinated motor acts. Speakers, however, do not only take advantage of token-based information such as frequency of individual, holistically stored words, or episodic memories of word usage, but they are also able to organise stored word forms through abstract paradigmatic structures (or word families) whose overall size and distribution are important determinants of lexical categorisation, inference and productivity. Lexical organisation is, in fact, not necessarily functional to descriptive economy and minimisation of storage, but appears to be influenced by more dynamic, communicationoriented functions such as memorisation, prediction-based recognition and production. Lending support to this view, usage-based approaches to word processing have recently offered novel explanatory frameworks that capitalise on the stable correlation patterns between lexical representations on the one hand and process-based operations that make representations functional to communicative exchanges on the other hand. By focusing on the battery of cognitive functions supporting verbal communication (ranging from input recoding to rehearsal, access, recall and coactivation) and by exploring their psycholinguistic correlates and neuroanatomical substrates, these approaches promote a new view of language architecture as an emergent property of the interaction between language-specific input conditions and low-level, domain-specific cognitive predispositions

Das Lesen komplexer Wörter: Morphologische Verarbeitung im Leseerwerb

Acknowledgements I Zusammenfassung III Abstract V 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Morphology in skilled reading 4 1.1.1 Introduction to (German) morphology 5 1.1.2 Morphological processing in adults 7 1.2 Morphology in reading acquisition 12 1.2.1 Models of reading development 13 1.2.2 Morphological processing in children 16 1.3 Research questions 20 1.4 Study overview 22 2 Investigating Developmental Trajectories of Morphemes as Reading Units in German 27 3 Syllables and morphemes in German reading development: Evidence from second-graders, fourth-graders and adults 59 4 Comparing effects of constituent frequency and whole-word frequency in children’s and adults’ compound word reading 85 5 Masked Morphological Priming in German-Speaking Adults and Children: Evidence from Response Time Distributions 100 6 General Discussion 124 6.1 The development of morphological processing 128 6.1.1 The developmental trajectory of morphological effects 129 6.1.2 The detection of form-meaning regularities 130 6.2 The morphological processing mechanisms in children and adults 132 6.2.1 The role of stem and affix representations 132 6.2.2 Implications for skilled reading 137 6.3 Future prospects 139 6.4 Final conclusions 144 References 146 Appendix 164 Erklärung 170 Curriculum Vitae 172Many words in German are complex in that they are built by a combination of two or more morphemes. Learning to read efficiently those complex words is a major step in becoming a skilled reader. While psycholinguistic research has provided much evidence suggesting that adults decompose morphologically complex words into their constituents, evidence for morphological processing in children is inconsistent and lacks a comprehensive account. The present dissertation investigates morphological processing from a developmental perspective. The aim of this work is to outline if, when and how children make use of constituent morphemes in complex word recognition in German. The dissertation provides comprehensive empirical evidence and a theoretical framework that advances our understanding of the underlying mechanisms and structures that are involved in learning to read complex words in German.Um ein guter Leser zu werden, ist es essenziell morphologisch komplexe Wörter schnell und effizient verarbeiten zu können. Ergebnisse psycholinguistischer Forschung mit Erwachsenen hat wiederholt gezeigt, dass geübte Leser komplexe Wörter in ihre Konstituenten zerlegen. Eine umfassende Beschreibung morphologischer Verarbeitung bei Kindern steht allerdings aus. Daher habe ich in meiner Promotionsarbeit morphologische Verarbeitung aus der Entwicklungs- perspektive untersucht. Das zentrale Ziel war, zu beschreiben, ob, wann und wie Kinder Morpheme in der Worterkennung im Deutschen nutzen. Die Dissertation liefert umfassende empirische Evidenz und einen theoretischen Rahmen für das Verständnis der Mechanismen und Strukturen, die beim Leseerwerb komplexer Wörter im Deutschen involviert sind

Examining the Paradox of Adult Second Language Word and Grammar Learning

Background: Adults generally demonstrate advanced cognitive skills compared to children, with second language (L2) learning being a key exception, particularly within the grammar domain. As optimal vocabulary and grammar learning are believed to engage in distinct explicit and implicit learning mechanisms, respectively, the advanced neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning adults’ higher-order cognitive skills may particularly interfere with implicit grammar learning. The objective of this dissertation was to examine select neural and cognitive factors that may contribute to word and grammar learning differences. In Study 1, I investigated the neural correlates of artificial vocabulary and morphology learning using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). Despite adults outperforming in explicit vocabulary outcomes compared to implicit grammar generalization, cortical differences between processing the two language components were minimal. On the other hand, significant changes in neural activity were observed in all four cortical lobes over the course of the initial language learning period, demonstrating the widespread cortical engagement inherent in the process of L2 learning. In Study 2, I examined the impact of effortful learning on implicit word and grammar learning outcomes using a modified statistical language learning paradigm with an underlying grammatical pattern. Performance on speeded syllable detection tasks using familiar and unfamiliar targets revealed that effortful and passive learning conditions resulted in comparable implicit learning outcomes related to word segmentation and grammar generalization. Thus, directing effort towards learning neither facilitated nor interfered with implicit L2 attainment. In Study 3, I investigated whether individual differences in statistical learning of words and/or grammatical patterns were related to domain-general cognitive abilities. The findings indicate that performance on tasks evaluating short-term memory, attention, strategic thinking, reasoning, and planning skills were not related to implicit word or grammar learning outcomes. Conclusion: Together, this dissertation presents empirical evidence that adults learn vocabulary more easily than grammatical patterns, but learning success is not related to domain-general cognitive mechanisms, at least concerning implicit representations of language. These findings are discussed in relation to existing literature and emerging theories of L2 learning. This research has important methodological implications and provides valuable insights to inform pedagogical practices for foreign language instruction

The role of language proficiency and statistical learning in on-line comprehension of syntax among bilingual adult readers

Statistical learning (SL) is the ability to identify co-occurring regularities from the environment, and has been implicated in learning across a range of skills, including language. This research project investigated whether there are associations between SL and on-line sentence processing in L1 Chinese L2 English bilinguals, and sought to examine whether second language proficiency mediated the relationship between visual SL and L2 language processing. To this end, two studies were conducted. In Study 1, sixty Chinese-English bilinguals completed a self-paced reading task in Mandarin and English, which tested participants’ on-line processing of subject and object relative clauses (RCs). They also completed a nonlinguistic visual SL task and a battery of additional measures measuring L2 English proficiency and general cognitive abilities. The results revealed that only nonverbal intelligence predicted L1 Chinese RCs processing, and neither visual SL capacity nor L2 proficiency predicted L2 English RCs processing. One possible explanation is that SL is partially modality-specific. Therefore, an auditory SL task was employed in addition to visual SL task in Study 2. In Study 2, fifty-two native Mandarin-speaking adults completed tests of visual and auditory SL, a self-paced reading task measuring the online processing of Mandarin relative clauses, and measures of general cognitive abilities. The results showed that auditory SL capacity independently predicted reading times in the self-paced reading task. Visual SL was also related to language processing, although the effect was marginal. The findings from Study 2 suggest that individual differences in adults’ capacity for SL are associated with on-line processing of Chinese

The Tip-of-the-Mandarin Tongue: The Effects of Phonology and Orthography on TOT Incidence and Resolution

The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon occurs when one knows a word but temporarily cannot recall it. TOT studies in English have demonstrated that providing the first syllable of a word plays an important role in resolving TOTs, and TOTs for English words with higher-frequency first syllables are less likely to be resolved than lower-frequency first syllables. The present study explored TOTs in Mandarin, where words consist of one syllable characters whose visual representation (orthography) is largely independent of their sound (phonology). Participants saw descriptions corresponding to target cheng-yus, four-character Chinese idioms. If they experienced a TOT, they saw a list of words where one was a phonological (Experiment 1) or orthographic (Experiment 2) prime. Phonological primes had a first character different from the target\u27s but contained either its first phoneme or first syllable (homophone), whereas an orthographic prime contained the target\u27s first radical. Primes’ first syllables and first radicals were also categorized as higher or lower in frequency. Results showed that a homophone prime marginally increased TOT resolution relative to an unrelated word, whereas a prime with the target’s first phoneme or first radical did not. With respect to frequency, TOTs were less likely to occur and were more likely to be resolved for words with higher-frequency first radicals than lower-frequency first radicals, whereas the first syllable’s frequency had no effect. These results are interpreted in terms of an interactive activation model for Mandarin where phonological and orthographic systems can both independently and interactively influence TOT resolution

Attention Restraint, Working Memory Capacity, and Mind Wandering: Do Emotional Valence or Intentionality Matter?

Attention restraint appears to mediate the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and mind wandering (Kane et al., 2016). Prior work has identifed two dimensions of mind wandering—emotional valence and intentionality. However, less is known about how WMC and attention restraint correlate with these dimensions. Te current study examined the relationship between WMC, attention restraint, and mind wandering by emotional valence and intentionality. A confrmatory factor analysis demonstrated that WMC and attention restraint were strongly correlated, but only attention restraint was related to overall mind wandering, consistent with prior fndings. However, when examining the emotional valence of mind wandering, attention restraint and WMC were related to negatively and positively valenced, but not neutral, mind wandering. Attention restraint was also related to intentional but not unintentional mind wandering. Tese results suggest that WMC and attention restraint predict some, but not all, types of mind wandering

Age-of-acquisition effects:a literature review

Age of acquisition (AoA) refers to the age at which people learn a particular item and the AoA effect refers to the phenomenon that early-acquired items are processed more quickly and accurately than those acquired later. Over several decades, the AoA effect has been investigated using neuroscientific, behavioral, corpus and computational techniques. We review the current evidence for the AoA effect stemming from a range of methodologies and paradigms and apply these findings to current explanations of how and where the AoA effect occurs. We conclude that the AoA effect can be found both in the connections between levels of representations and within these representations themselves, and that the effect itself occurs through the process of the distinct coding of early and late items, together with the nature of the connections between levels of representation. This approach strongly suggests that the AoA effect results from the construction of perceptual-semantic representations and the mappings between representation

The effect of Cross-Linguistic Influence in Mandarin learners of English on interpreting state-change verbs in English

This thesis covers the discussion of the role of L1 Mandarin in the course of L2 English acquisition. I focus specifically on state-change verbs where English and Mandarin share some properties but diverge in interpretations, as a way of examining if Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2007, 2008, 2009) is extendable to other domains of grammar that are not explicitly discussed in previous literature. Noticeably, I don’t aim to test the predictions of the model in this thesis but use the model to examine the process of reassembling the state- change feature and investigate whether FRH can be extended to domains beyond syntax and morphosyntax