1,721,324 research outputs found
The use of eye movement corpora in vocabulary research
No full textAnalysis of existing datasets of eye movements in reading is a valuable tool for vocabulary research because it allows researchers to examine word recognition in an authentic context. We argue that such secondary analysis is an important addition to new experimental studies and existing mega-studies because it examines word recognition in real text rather than in crammed conditions or in isolation. Corpora in which participants read long texts are particularly interesting because they provide rich material that can be better controlled for confounding variables, but a collection of small data sets can also be interesting because it contains more variation than is typically possible in a single study. We discuss the considerations to take into account when dealing with eye movement data in reading and urge colleagues to make their eye movement data available in the spirit of open science so that a larger database can be built more quickly
LexITA: A Quick and Reliable Assessment Tool for Italian L2 Receptive Vocabulary Size
Full text linkIn language and second language acquisition research, it is important to have a measure for tracking the proficiency level of participants. Lexical competence is fundamental for communicative purposes in a given language, and vocabulary tests are a reliable measure to assess lexical proficiency. That is why vocabulary tests have a central role in language proficiency assessment. Although many people study Italian as second language (L2), an easy-to-use vocabulary test to measure lexical proficiency is still missing. In this work, we aim to fill this gap by presenting LexITA, which is an objective, reliable, and quick assessment of Italian receptive vocabulary. LextITA was validated on students of Italian L2 and showed to be a valid measure to assess vocabulary knowledge of L2 speakers spanning different levels of proficiency
Cross-language influences in L2 semantic and conceptual representation and processing
No full textLanguages come with a unique set of words to label concepts so that sometimes a word in one language does not have a semantic equivalent in another language. This lack of equivalence is multi-faceted: words in two languages can be defined at different levels of abstraction, have different senses, or have conflicting affective connotations. What factors determine semantic equivalence across languages, and how are they incorporated in current theories of bilingual semantic representation? How do bilinguals navigate conflicting meanings or leverage semantic equivalence between two languages? To address these questions, this chapter will draw on recent proposals that combine multimodal experiential and linguistic representations to capture meaning. The multimodal view provides a framework to review distinct types of semantic equivalence at the feature, word, and language level. Finally, the implications of differentiating different types of semantic equivalence for bilingual studies are discussed
Cross-language influences in bilingual processing and second language acquisition : an introduction to the volume
No full textIn this chapter, we situate cross-language influences as an interdisciplinary research topic, outline the structure of the volume, and highlight key points from the state-of-the-art review chapters. The chapters critically evaluate the present state of research into cross-language influences across three core domains of linguistic knowledge (phonology, lexicon, and morphosyntax) and identify promising directions for future interdisciplinary research
Strategic effects in associative priming with words, homophones and pseudohomophones
Full text linkLukatela and Turvey (1994) showed that at prime presentation duration of 57 ms naming of a visually presented target word (frog) is primed not only by an associate word (toad), but also by a homophone of the associate (towed) and a pseudohomophone of the associate (tode). At prime presentation of 250 ms, priming with the homophone was no longer observed. Lukatela and Turvey's interpreted these findings as evidence for a strong phonological activation-verification model of visual word recognition, which entails that lexical representations are activated on the basis of a phonological code and subsequently disambiguated by a lexically mediated spelling check if more than one spelling corresponds to the phonological code. Four experiments are reported that further addressed the issue of phonologically mediated associative priming in visual word recognition. In Experiment 1, we replicated Lukatela and Turvey's findings in the Dutch language. Next, we demonstrate that the effect is not confined to the naming task but is also obtained in a lexical decision task with non-homophonic non-words (Experiments 2 and 3). Finally (Experiment 4), we show that when the lexical decision involves a word/pseudohomophone decision, phonologically mediated associated priming is still observed at 57 ms when the prime is a pseudohomophone of the associate (tode-frog) but not when the prime is a homophone of the associate (towed- frog). The results are interpreted within Lukatela and Turvey's activation verification model and we present evidence why we believe that a prime presentation duration of 57 ms yields a better estimate of the time course of the spelling check than prime presentation duration of 250 ms previously reported
Parafoveal-on-foveal effects on eye movements in text reading: does an extra space make a difference?
Full text linkSchiepers (1980) proposed that in text reading, the currently fixated word and the next word are processed in parallel but with a time delay of 90 ms per degree of eccentricity. In his model, the benefit of seeing the upcoming word is due to the fact that the parafoveal information from fixation n is combined with the foveal information from fixation n+1 to boost word recognition, at least when the fixation on word n is of an optimal duration (between 210 and 270 ms). We tested this assumption by adding an extra blank space between the foveal and the parafoveal word. According to the model, this should result in a 30 ms longer processing time for the foveal word. However, reading time was shorter for a word followed by a double space than for a word followed by a single space. An effect of parafoveal word length was also observed with a longer word in the parafovea leading to shorter fixation times on the foveal word. Implications of these low-level parafoveal-on-foveal effects are discussed
Please stop using word frequency data that are likely to be word length effects in disguise
Full text linkReichle et al. claim to successfully simulate a frequency effect of 60% on skipping rate in human data, whereas the original article reports an effect of only 4%. We suspect that the deviation is due to the length of the words in the different conditions, which implies that E-Z Reader is wrong in its conception of eye guidance between words
The Split Fovea Theory and the Leicester critique: what do the data say?
Full text linkAccording to the Split Fovea Theory (SFT) recognition of foveally presented words involves interhemispherictransfer. This is because letters to the left of the fixation location are initially sent to the righthemisphere, whereas letters to the right of the fixation position are projected to the left hemisphere.Both sources of information must be integrated for words to be recognized. Evidence for the SFT comesfrom the Optimal Viewing Position (OVP) paradigm, in which foveal word recognition is examined asa function of the letter fixated. OVP curves are different for left and right language dominant participants,indicating a time cost when information is presented in the half-field ipsilateral to the dominanthemisphere (Hunter, Brysbaert, & Knecht, 2007). The methodology of the SFT research has recently beenquestioned, because not enough efforts were made to ensure adequate fixation. The aim of the presentstudy is to test the validity of this argument. Experiment 1 replicated the OVP effect in a naming taskby presenting words at different fixation positions, with the experimental settings applied in previousOVP research. Experiment 2 monitored and controlled eye fixations of the participants and presentedthe stimuli within the boundaries of the fovea. Exactly the same OVP curve was obtained. In Experiment3, the eyes were also tracked and monocular viewing was used. Results again revealed the same OVPeffect, although latencies were remarkably higher than in the previous experiments. From these resultswe can conclude that although noise is present in classical SFT studies without eye-tracking, this doesnot change the OVP effect observed with left dominant individuals
How important are linguistic factors in word skipping during reading?
Full text linkThe probability of skipping a word is influenced by its processing ease. For instance, a word that is predictable from the preceding context is skipped more often than an unpredictable word. A meta-analysis of studies examining this predictability effect reported effect sizes ranging from 0 to 13%, with an average of 8%. One study does not fit within this picture and reported 23% more skipping of Dutch pronouns in sentences in which the pronoun had no disambiguating value (e.g. ‘Mary was envious of Helen because she never looked so good’) than in sentences where it did have a disambiguating value (e.g. ‘Mary was envious of Albert because she never looked so good’). We re-examined this ambiguity in Dutch using a task that more closely resembles normal reading and observed only a 9% difference in skipping of the pronoun, bringing this linguistic effect in line with the other findings
Slagen met dyslexie in het hoger onderwijs
No full textTussen 2009 en 2015 ging aan de Universiteit Gent een grootschalig, longitudinaal onderzoek van start naar studeren met dyslexie in het hoger. Het doel was een breed beeld te krijgen van studenten met dyslexie die starten in het hoger onderwijs in Vlaanderen. Daarnaast werden deze studenten gedurende 3 academiejaren gemonitord om een beter beeld te krijgen van hun studievoortgang en studieresultaten.
Als groep presteerden de studenten met dyslexie vaak lager dan de studenten zonder dyslexie, vooral voor lezen en spellen. Spelling was meer aangedaan dan lezen. Daarnaast hadden studenten met dyslexie een lagere verwerkingssnelheid dan studenten zonder dyslexie. Studenten met dyslexie hadden ook meer tijd nodig om verbale informatie uit hun langetermijngeheugen op te roepen (bijvoorbeeld eenvoudige rekenfeiten) dan studenten zonder dyslexie. Wat (vloeiende) intelligentie betreft werd er geen verschil gevonden tussen beide groepen.
Wat de slaagcijfers betreft, behaalden 70% van de controlestudenten tegenover 57% van de studenten met dyslexie na drie jaar een bachelordiploma. Echter bleek dit verschil niet significant. Daarnaast zagen we bij studenten met dyslexie wel significant hogere dropoutcijfers in vergelijking met studenten zonder dyslexie. Studenten met dyslexie hadden een verhoogde kans om tijdens het academiejaar hun studierichting af te breken en/of van richting te veranderen. Momenteel wordt onderzocht welke factoren hiervoor verantwoordelijk zijn.
Een belangrijke bevinding van deze studie blijft dat studenten met dyslexie ontegensprekelijk voor extra uitdagingen staan maar dat verder studeren ook voor hen zeker een haalbare kaart is. Studenten met dyslexie zijn dan ook gebaat bij een goede studiekeuzebegeleiding en voorbereiding van hun transitie van het secundair naar het hoger onderwijs
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