Publications

Abstract

The visual world paradigm is one of the most influential paradigms to study real-time language processing. The present study tested whether visual world studies can be moved online, using PCIbex software (Zehr & Schwarz, 2018) and the WebGazer.js algorithm (Papoutsaki et al., 2016) to collect eye-movement data. Experiment 1 was a fixation task in which the participants looked at a fixation cross in multiple positions on the computer screen. Experiment 2 was a web-based replication of a visual world experiment by Dijkgraaf et al. (2017). Firstly, both experiments revealed that the spatial accuracy of the data allowed us to distinguish looks across the four quadrants of the computer screen. This suggest that the spatial resolution of WebGazer.js is fine-grained enough for most visual world experiments (which typically involve a two-by-two quadrant-based set-up of the visual display). Secondly, both experiments revealed a delay of roughly 300 ms in the time course of the eye movements, possibly caused by the internal processing speed of the browser or WebGazer.js. This delay can be problematic in studying questions that require a fine-grained temporal resolution and requires further investigation.

Abstract

Language comprehension involves the derivation of the meaning of sentences by combining the meanings of their parts. In some cases, this can lead to ambiguity. A sentence like Every hiker climbed a hill allows two logical representations: One that specifies that every hiker climbed a different hill and one that specifies that every hiker climbed the same hill. The interpretations of such sentences can be primed: Exposure to a particular reading increases the likelihood that the same reading will be assigned to a subsequent similar sentence. Feiman and Snedeker (2016) observed that such priming is not modulated by overlap of the verb between prime and target. This indicates that mental logical representations specify the compositional structure of the sentence meaning without conceptual meaning content. We conducted a close replication of Feiman and Snedeker’s experiment in Dutch and found no verb-independent priming. Moreover, a comparison with a previous, within-verb priming experiment showed an interaction, suggesting stronger verb-specific than abstract priming. A power analysis revealed that both Feiman and Snedeker’s experiment and our Experiment 1 were underpowered. Therefore, we replicated our Experiment 1, using the sample size guidelines provided by our power analysis. This experiment again showed that priming was stronger if a prime-target pair contained the same verb. Together, our experiments show that logical representation priming is enhanced if the prime and target sentence contain the same verb. This suggests that logical representations specify compositional structure and meaning features in an integrated manner.

Abstract

Bock et al. (1992) found that the binding of animacy features onto grammatical roles is susceptible to priming in sentence production. Moreover, this effect did not interact with structural priming. This finding supports an account according to which syntactic representations are insensitive to the consistency of animacy-to-structure mapping. This account has contributed greatly to the development of syntactic processing theories in language production. However, this study has never been directly replicated and the few related studies showed mixed results. A meta-analysis of these studies failed to replicate the findings of Bock et al. (1992). Therefore, we conducted a well-powered replication (n = 496) that followed the original study as closely as possible. We found an effect of structural priming and an animacy priming effect, replicating Bock et al.’s findings. In addition, we replicated Bock et al.’s (1992) observed null interaction between structural priming and animacy binding, which suggests that syntactic representations are indeed independent of semantic information about animacy.

Abstract

A doubly quantified sentence, such as All hikers climbed a hill, allows two interpretations: Did all hikers climb different hills, or did they climb the same hill? Previous work has shown that comprehenders construct disambiguated logical representations of these interpretations (Raffray & Pickering, 2010). We extended this line of research by investigating whether bilingual logical representations are shared between languages or separate per language. We conducted four sentence-picture matching experiments in which we primed interpretations of doubly quantified sentences in Dutch and French monolingual and bilingual language comprehension. These experiments showed that bilinguals have fully shared logical representations and that logical representations constructed in the L1 and the L2 are comparable. Moreover, a control experiment ruled out that the priming effects were driven by visual overlap between prime and target pictures. We discuss these findings in terms of a language-dependent account of logical representations, although these findings can also be reconciled with the idea that logical representations involve conceptual mental models of sentence meaning.