Effects of Visual Priming and Event Orientation on Word Order Choice in Russian Sentence Production

Existing research shows that distribution of the speaker’s attention among event’s protagonists affects syntactic choice during sentence production. One of the debated issues concerns the extent of the attentional contribution to syntactic choice in languages that put stronger emphasis on word order arrangement rather than the choice of the overall syntactic frame. To address this, the current study used a sentence production task, in which Russian native speakers were asked to verbally describe visually perceived transitive events. Prior to describing the target event, a visual cue directed the participants’ attention to the location of either the agent or the patient of the subsequently presented visual event. In addition, we also manipulated event orientation (agent-left vs. agent-right) as another potential contributor to syntactic choice. The number of patient-initial sentences was the dependent variable compared between conditions. First, the obtained results replicated the effect of visual cueing on the word order in Russian language: more patient-initial sentences in patient cued condition. Second, we registered a novel effect of event orientation: Russian native speakers produced more patient-initial sentences after seeing events developing from right to left as opposed to left-to-right events. Our study provides new evidence about the role of the speaker’s attention and event orientation in syntactic choice in language with flexible word order

Motor (but not auditory) attention affects syntactic choice

Understanding the determinants of syntactic choice in sentence production is a salient topic in psycholinguistics. Existing evidence suggests that syntactic choice results from an interplay between linguistic and non-linguistic factors, and a speaker’s attention to the elements of a described event represents one such factor. Whereas multimodal accounts of attention suggest a role for different modalities in this process, existing studies examining attention effects in syntactic choice are primarily based on visual cueing paradigms. Hence, it remains unclear whether attentional effects on syntactic choice are limited to the visual modality or are indeed more general. This issue is addressed by the current study. Native English participants viewed and described line drawings of simple transitive events while their attention was directed to the location of the agent or the patient of the depicted event by means of either an auditory (monaural beep) or a motor (unilateral key press) lateral cue. Our results show an effect of cue location, with participants producing more passive-voice descriptions in the patient-cued conditions. Crucially, this cue location effect emerged in the motor-cue but not (or substantially less so) in the auditory-cue condition, as confirmed by a reliable interaction between cue location (agent vs. patient) and cue type (auditory vs. motor). Our data suggest that attentional effects on the speaker’s syntactic choices are modality-specific and limited to the visual and motor, but not the auditory, domain

Biliteracy and acquisition of novel written words: the impact of phonological conflict between L1 and L2 scripts

The acquisition of new orthographic representations is a rapid and accurate process in proficient monolingual readers. The present study used biliterate and bialphabetic population to address the impact of phonological inconsistencies across the native (L1) and second (L2) alphabets. Naming latencies were collected from 50 Russian-English biliterates through a reading-aloud task with familiar and novel word forms repeated across 10 blocks. There were three Script conditions: (1) native Cyrillic, (2) non-native Roman, and (3) Ambiguous (with graphically identical, but phonologically inconsistent graphemes shared by both alphabets). Our analysis revealed the main effect of Script on both reading and orthographic learning: naming latencies during training were longer for the ambiguous stimuli, particularly for the novel ones. Nonetheless, novel word forms in the ambiguous condition approached the latencies for the familiar words along the exposures, although this effect was faster in the phonologically consistent trials. Post-training tests revealed similarly successful performance patterns for previously familiar and newly trained forms, indicating successful rapid acquisition of the latter. Furthermore, we found the highest free recall rates for the ambiguous stimuli. Overall, our results indicate that phonological inconsistency initially interferes with the efficiency of novel word encoding. Nevertheless, it does not prevent efficient attribution of orthographic representations; instead, the knowledge of two distinct alphabets supports a more efficient learning and a better memory for ambiguous stimuli via enhancing their encoding and retrieval

Understanding Language Attrition through Orthography

The decay in the proficiency of the native language (L1), known as first language attrition, is one of the least understood phenomena associated with the acquisition of a second language (L2). Indeed, the exact cause for the deterioration in L1 performance, be that either the interference from L2 acquisition or the less frequent use of L1, still remains elusive. In this opinion paper, we focus on one largely understudied aspect of L1 attrition—namely, the erosion of the L1 orthographic knowledge under the influence of L2 orthography. In particular, we propose to study differences in orthographic processing between mono- and bilingual populations as an approach, which, in turn, will allow to address both cognitive and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying L1 attrition. We discuss relevant experimental paradigms, variable manipulations and appropriate research methods that may help disentangle the largely debated question of L2 interference vs. L1 disuse, clarifying the nature of the L1 orthographic attrition

Size Matters. Effects of Relative Distance on the Acceptability of Spatial Prepositions

Kluth T, Burigo M, Schultheis H, Knoeferle P. Size Matters. Effects of Relative Distance on the Acceptability of Spatial Prepositions. In: Shestakova A, Moiseeva V, Myachykov A, et al., eds. The 10th Annual Embodied and Situated Language Processing. Moscow, Russia: Centre for Cognition and Decision Making, Higher School of Economics; 2017: 26

Effects of Auditory and Visual Cueing of Attention on Syntactic Choice in Sentence Production

One of the topics in current psycholinguistic research is the study of the factors affecting syntactic choice in sentence production. Previous research suggests that syntactic choice results from an interplay between linguistic and non-linguistic factors, and a speaker’s attention to the elements of a described event represents one such factor. It is a well-established fact that our attention simultaneously receives input from various attentional modalities (e.g. auditory, motor, olfactory, etc.). Afterwards, attention filters the input by a number of factors (e.g. saliency) and allocates resources to the most prominent and important input at a given moment. This poses the question of whether other attentional modalities affect syntactic choice in a similar manner to visual modality. In this study we aimed to understand whether auditory and visual attention can affect syntactic choice. English native speakers described drawings of simple transitive events while their attention was directed to the location of the agent or the patient of a depicted event by means of either an auditory (monaural beep) or a visual (red circle) explicit lateral cue. We have measured the amount of passive structures produced. Our results were not significant, however there was a visible trend in visual cueing condition. In this paper we discuss possible reasons for such outcomes

Pokhoday_etal_data

This is a dataset set of 24 participants which is described in a paper: Motor (but not auditory) attention affects syntactic choice by Pokhoday et al

A diagram of the experimental procedure.

<p>A diagram of the experimental procedure.</p

Probabilities of active versus passive voice responses across all participants and trials.

<p>Probabilities of active versus passive voice responses across all participants and trials.</p

Stimulus example.

<p>A transitive event “The monk is shot by the chef”.</p