Children’s and adults’ on-line processing of syntactically ambiguous sentences during reading
Children’s and adults’ on-line processing of syntactically ambiguous sentences during reading
While there has been a fair amount of research investigating children's syntactic processing during spoken language comprehension, and a wealth of research examining adults' syntactic processing during reading, as yet very little research has focused on syntactic processing during text reading in children. In two experiments, children and adults read sentences containing a temporary syntactic ambiguity while their eye movements were monitored. In Experiment 1, participants read sentences such as, 'The boy poked the elephant with the long stick/trunk from outside the cage' in which the attachment of a prepositional phrase was manipulated. In Experiment 2, participants read sentences such as, 'I think I'll wear the new skirt I bought tomorrow/yesterday. It's really nice' in which the attachment of an adverbial phrase was manipulated. Results showed that adults and children exhibited similar processing preferences, but that children were delayed relative to adults in their detection of initial syntactic misanalysis. It is concluded that children and adults have the same sentence-parsing mechanism in place, but that it operates with a slightly different time course. In addition, the data support the hypothesis that the visual processing system develops at a different rate than the linguistic processing system in children.
e54141
Joseph, H.S.S.L
e31d2b19-e129-43eb-bb61-30eee7bc3a81
Liversedge, Simon P.
3ebda3f3-d930-4f89-85d5-5654d8fe7dee
2013
Joseph, H.S.S.L
e31d2b19-e129-43eb-bb61-30eee7bc3a81
Liversedge, Simon P.
3ebda3f3-d930-4f89-85d5-5654d8fe7dee
Joseph, H.S.S.L and Liversedge, Simon P.
(2013)
Children’s and adults’ on-line processing of syntactically ambiguous sentences during reading.
PLoS ONE, 8 (1), .
(doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0054141).
Abstract
While there has been a fair amount of research investigating children's syntactic processing during spoken language comprehension, and a wealth of research examining adults' syntactic processing during reading, as yet very little research has focused on syntactic processing during text reading in children. In two experiments, children and adults read sentences containing a temporary syntactic ambiguity while their eye movements were monitored. In Experiment 1, participants read sentences such as, 'The boy poked the elephant with the long stick/trunk from outside the cage' in which the attachment of a prepositional phrase was manipulated. In Experiment 2, participants read sentences such as, 'I think I'll wear the new skirt I bought tomorrow/yesterday. It's really nice' in which the attachment of an adverbial phrase was manipulated. Results showed that adults and children exhibited similar processing preferences, but that children were delayed relative to adults in their detection of initial syntactic misanalysis. It is concluded that children and adults have the same sentence-parsing mechanism in place, but that it operates with a slightly different time course. In addition, the data support the hypothesis that the visual processing system develops at a different rate than the linguistic processing system in children.
Other
fetchObject.action_uri=info_doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0054141&representation=PDF
- Version of Record
Available under License Other.
More information
Published date: 2013
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 346341
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/346341
ISSN: 1932-6203
PURE UUID: ad7cfc50-f69e-4abf-9a21-37aad30867b8
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 15 Jan 2013 11:18
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 12:35
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
H.S.S.L Joseph
Author:
Simon P. Liversedge
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics