EFL Learners’ Knowledge and Use of Gender Stereotypes: Evidence from Arabic Native Speakers

The research explored EFL learners’ knowledge and use of gender stereotypes of common English nouns (e.g., doctor and nurse). In the study, we compared how EFL learners living in Saudi Arabia and native English speakers rated 24 nouns that can be used to refer to either males or females and how they interpreted sentences containing the gender-specific pronouns his and her preceded by one of the three types of these nouns (i.e., male stereotyped, female stereotyped, or gender neutral). The results showed that performance for EFL learners differed from native speakers’ in both tasks. EFL learners rated nouns as generally referring to males more often than did native English speakers. EFL learners were also significantly less likely to interpret her and his as referring to the preceding noun than were native English speakers. The results suggest that in EFL courses, learners are likely to benefit from explicit coverage of gender ambiguous English nouns and the topic of gender stereotyping as an important aspect of vocabulary knowledge

The Role of Discourse Prominence in Antecedent Search: The Case of Genitive Noun Phrases

The research investigated how readers comprehended reflexive pronoun anaphors (e.g., himself or herself) that occurred in the same sentence with an antecedent that was modified by a genitive noun phrase (NP). Prior research suggested that during the search for an antecedent, readers consider only those preceding discourse entities that are prominent in the discourse; thus, genitive NPs would not be considered because they lack discourse prominence (Badecker & Straub, 2002). Two reading experiments tested this claim. In Experiment 1, genitive NPs were noun descriptions that were strongly stereotyped for gender (e.g., “The executive’s/secretary’s father cut himself…”). In Experiment 2, genitive NPs were gender-specific proper names (e.g., “John’s/Mary’s father cut himself…”), similar to those used in the prior research. The results indicated that genitive NPs that were strongly stereotyped for gender influenced sentence processing time, but genitive NPs that were gender-specific proper names did not; thus, genitive NPs are not uniformly excluded from consideration during the resolution of reflexive pronouns

Rapid Cortisol and Testosterone Responses to Sex-Linked Stressors: Implications for the Tend-and-Befriend Hypothesis

Current evolutionary theories regarding the nature of hormonal responses to a variety of salient social stimuli are incomplete in yielding evidentiary support for their assertions. This study offers more nuanced evidence for the Tend-and- Befriend model of sex differences in responses to social stimuli. Participants were randomly assigned to a mortality salience prime or a control condition prior to viewing a video of an out-group threat or a video of infants crying. Cortisol and testosterone responses were assessed. The results showed that in mortality salience conditions, females showed significantly higher cortisol responses to infants crying compared to males. Further, in both mortality salience and control conditions, females showed significantly higher testosterone responses to the crying infants than males. Males showed a greater testosterone response to viewing an out-group threat. Mortality salience prime did not impact testosterone responses in either sex. Results point to a more nuanced representation of hormonal responses to social stimuli and the need for multisystem measurement

Rapid Cortisol and Testosterone Responses to Sex-Linked Stressors: Implications for the Tend-and-Befriend Hypothesis

Current evolutionary theories regarding the nature of hormonal responses to a variety of salient social stimuli are incomplete in yielding evidentiary support for their assertions. This study offers more nuanced evidence for the Tend-and- Befriend model of sex differences in responses to social stimuli. Participants were randomly assigned to a mortality salience prime or a control condition prior to viewing a video of an out-group threat or a video of infants crying. Cortisol and testosterone responses were assessed. The results showed that in mortality salience conditions, females showed significantly higher cortisol responses to infants crying compared to males. Further, in both mortality salience and control conditions, females showed significantly higher testosterone responses to the crying infants than males. Males showed a greater testosterone response to viewing an out-group threat. Mortality salience prime did not impact testosterone responses in either sex. Results point to a more nuanced representation of hormonal responses to social stimuli and the need for multisystem measurement

The role of verb-specific lexical information in syntactic ambiguity resolution

Four experiments investigated how verb-specific lexical information is used in resolving the noun phrase complement/tensed sentence complement ambiguity, extending prior research (Ferreira & Henderson, 1990; Holmes, Stowe, & Cupples, 1989; Trueswell, Tannenhaus, & Kello, 1993). Predictions from the Constraint Satisfaction Approach (MacDonald, 1994; MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seidenberg, 1994a; 1994b; Tannenhaus & Trueswell, 1994; Trueswell, Tannenhaus, & Kello, 1993) and the Lexical Filtering Proposal (Clifton, Speer, & Abney, 1991; Ferreira & Henderson, 1990; 1991; Frazier, 1987; Frazier & Clifton, 1989) were contrasted. The former approach assumes that lexical information is used to guide the analysis of syntactically ambiguous phrases, predicting that comparable effects of verb bias should be observed for ambiguous versus unambiguous tensed sentence complements as for sentences containing temporarily ambiguous noun phrase complements and for sentences containing unambiguous tensed sentence complements. The latter proposal, an extension of the Garden Path Model (Frazier, 1978; Frazier & Fodor, 1978; Frazier, & Rayner, 1982), assumes that lexical information may be used when it becomes available; however, the analysis of syntactically ambiguous phrases is not delayed until lexical information becomes available, but instead is made in accordance with the syntactic parsing principles Minimal Attachment and Late Closure. Therefore, larger effects of verb bias are predicted for ambiguous versus unambiguous tensed sentence complements than for sentences containing temporarily ambiguous noun phrase complements or for sentences containing unambiguous tensed sentence complements. In Experiments 1-3, two self-paced reading methods (phrase by phrase and word by word presentation) and eye tracking were used to compare reading time on sentences containing ambiguous and unambiguous tensed sentence complements, containing either short or long ambiguous noun phrases, preceded by either NP-biased verbs, i.e., verbs generally occurring most frequently with noun phrase complements, or S-biased verbs, i.e., verbs generally occurring most frequently with tensed sentence complements. In Experiment 4, eye tracking was used to compare reading time on sentences containing temporarily ambiguous tensed sentence complements, temporarily ambiguous noun phrase complements, and unambiguous tensed sentence complements, containing either short or long ambiguous noun phrases, preceded by either NP-biased or S-biased verbs. Results from these four experiments are most compatible with the Lexical Filtering Proposal. Implications for models of human sentence processing are discussed

Introduction to language development

xxi, 469 p. ; 23 c