To model behavioral and neural correlates of language comprehension in naturalistic environments, researchers have turned to broad-coverage tools from natural-language processing and machine learning. Where syntactic structure is explicitly modeled, prior work has relied predominantly on context-free grammars (CFGs), yet such formalisms are not…

A robust finding in psycholinguistics is that prior language experience influences subsequent language processing. This phenomenon is known as syntactic priming. Most of the empirical support for L2 syntactic priming comes from lab-based experiments. However, this evidence might not reflect how priming occurs in typical language activities in the…

When individuals read a narrative text, they construct a mental representation known as a situational model to comprehend the unfolding story. These models require updates at meaningful changes in the story to reflect current information accurately. Existing research highlights the attentional and working memory demands of these updating…

Little is known about how nonnative speakers process novel language patterns in the input they encounter. The present study examines whether nonnatives develop a sensitivity to novel binomials and their ordering preference from context. Thirty-nine nonnative speakers of English (L1 Arabic) read three short stories seeded with existing binomials…

This study evaluated the effect of peer-assisted learning strategies (PALS) intervention on the language and story comprehension skills of two kindergartners with developmental delays from a special education class while reading a digital storybook. The study was conducted in Taiwan with participants who spoke Mandarin Chinese. This study was a…

"Tender Shoots" compared two book-reading and conversation approaches for parents and preschoolers to an activity-based control group. The "Rich Reading and Reminiscing" (RRR) condition taught parents to converse about the storyline; the "Strengthening Sound Sensitivity" (SSS) condition taught parents to converse…

We describe a study of the internet-based Parent-Implemented Communication Strategies--Storybook (i-PiCSS), an intervention designed to train and coach parents to use evidenced-based naturalistic communication teaching (NCT) strategies (i.e., modeling, mand-model, and time delay) and RTs while reading storybooks with their young children with…

Infants struggle to understand familiar words spoken in unfamiliar accents. Here, we examine whether accent exposure facilitates accent-specific adaptation. Two types of pre-exposure were examined: video-based (i.e., listening to pre-recorded stories; Experiment 1) and live interaction (reading books with an experimenter; Experiments 2 and 3).…

There are numerous studies showing processing advantages for collocations, but none of them so far takes into account the fact that the morphological form of a collocation varies to fit the context. Questions whether collocations retain their processing advantage when their morphological form changes and how or if different morphological forms of…