Previous work on individual differences has revealed limitations in the ability of existing measures (e.g., working memory) to predict language processing. Recent evidence suggests that an individual's sensitivity to detect the statistical regularities present in language (i.e., "chunk sensitivity") may significantly modulate online…

In this commentary on the Special Issue, I will address the question of what memory spans measure concerning language, as language has, at least, a linear and a hierarchical dimension. I suggest that if anything what is measured has to do with the linear dimension. Then, I will discuss the welcome results on bilingual children with language…

This paper reviews three studies investigating the relationship between brain regions involved in executive control and those involved in reading comprehension in typically-developing teens. In the first study, three regions of posterior left lateral prefrontal cortex (i.e., precentral gyrus, inferior frontal junction, inferior frontal gyrus) were…

The authors argue that Ambridge's radical exemplar account of language cannot clearly explain all syntactic priming evidence, such as inverse preference effects ("greater" priming for less frequent structures), and the contrast between short-lived lexical boost and long-lived abstract priming. Moreover, without recourse to a level of…

Short term memory (STM) and working memory (WM) performance consistently predict language abilities in children with developmental language disorders. However, causality is not fully established. Moreover, evidence from the fine-grained analysis of STM/WM tasks and comprehension of complex sentences, suggests that long term memory (LTM)…

We propose a review of the literature of the studies investigating reading acquisition in intellectual deficiency (ID), with particular focus on the explanatory factors for reading difficulties. Indeed, we explore the role of intellectual efficiency, perceptual abilities, oral language development, phonological processing and memory. The study of…

This review evaluates two recent anthologies that survey research at the intersection of cognitive psychological investigations of (working) memory and issues in second language (L2), and bilingual processing and acquisition. The volumes cover similar ground by outlining the theoretical underpinnings of models of (working) memory as well as…

This study examined whether the proposed bilingual advantage in inhibitory control and working memory can be extended to a trilingual advantage, and assessed any age-related effects on a continuum in young adults to older adults. Trilinguals, bilinguals and monolinguals' performance on the Simon task and a numerical version of the N-back task was…

I propose that the course of development in first and second language acquisition is shaped by two types of processing pressures--internal efficiency-related factors relevant to easing the burden on working memory and external input-related factors such as frequency of occurrence. In an attempt to document the role of internal factors, I consider…

This article reviews research that has investigated the role of verbal working memory (VWM) in sentence comprehension in both typical and atypical developmental populations. Two theoretical approaches that specify different roles for VWM in sentence comprehension are considered: (i) capacity-limit approaches, which treat VWM as a theoretical…

This review examined the status of long-term memory systems in specific language impairment (SLI)--declarative memory and aspects of procedural memory in particular. Studies included in the review were identified following a systematic search of the literature and findings combined using meta-analysis. This review showed that individuals with SLI…

This study examines the roles of proficiency and working memory (WM) capacity in second-/foreign-language (L2) learners' processing of agreement morphology. It investigates the processing of grammatical and ungrammatical short- and long-distance number agreement dependencies by native English speakers at two proficiencies in French, and the…

Influential theories have claimed that the ability for recursion forms the computational core of human language faculty distinguishing our communication system from that of other animals (Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch, 2002). In the present study, we consider an alternative view on recursion by studying the contribution of associative and working…

We compared the processing of natural language quantifiers in a group of patients with schizophrenia and a healthy control group. In both groups, the difficulty of the quantifiers was consistent with computational predictions, and patients with schizophrenia took more time to solve the problems. However, they were significantly less accurate only…

Although statistical learning and language have been assumed to be intertwined, this theoretical presupposition has rarely been tested empirically. The present study investigates the relationship between statistical learning and language using a within-subject design embedded in an individual-differences framework. Participants were administered…