Segmentation is a cornerstone of language processing across levels of linguistic analysis, and yet, standard models of linguistic memory leave the role of higher-order segments in online comprehension understudied. This dissertation advances the Context-Sensitive Encoding (CSE) hypothesis: that implicit prosodic boundaries (Bader, 1998; J. Fodor,…

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…

Background: German is exceptional in its use of noun capitalisation. It has been suggested that sentence-internal capitalisation as in German may benefit processing by specifically marking a noun and thus a noun phrase (NP). However, other cues, such as a determiner, can also indicate an NP. The influence of capitalisation on processing may thus…

Seminal studies on negation revealed that negative sentences are difficult to process, as they require an extra mental step. Similarly, at the discourse level, concession has been repeatedly shown to be more complex than other relations such as result because it implies the denial of an inference. The affinity between negation and concession…

Lexical stress plays a critical role in multisyllabic word reading in English. However, assignment of English lexical stress, which is neither fixed nor marked in writing, can pose significant challenges for English learners and has not been well-understood. The present study aims to fill the research gap by studying sensitivity to lexical stress…

It remains unclear whether late second language learners (L2ers) can acquire sufficient knowledge about unique-to-L2 constructions through implicit learning to build anticipations during real-time processing. To tackle this question, we conducted a visual world paradigm experiment to investigate high-proficiency late first-language Dutch…

Previous work has ostensibly shown that readers rapidly adapt to less predictable ambiguity resolutions after repeated exposure to unbalanced statistical input (e.g., a high number of reduced relative-clause garden-path sentences), and that these readers grow to disfavor the a priori more frequent (e.g. main verb) resolution after exposure (Fine,…

In the online processing of long-distance wh-dependencies, native speakers have been found to make use of intermediate syntactic gaps, which has the effect of facilitating dependency resolution. This strategy has also been observed in second language (L2) speakers living in an L2 immersion context, but not in classroom L2 learners. This research…

In four experiments, we investigated the impact of letter case (lower case vs. UPPER CASE) on the processing of sequences of written words. Experiment 1 used the rapid parallel visual presentation (RPVP) paradigm with postcued identification of one word in a five-word sequence. The sequence could be grammatically correct (e.g., "the boy likes…

The association between a word and typical location (e.g., cloud-up) appears to modulate healthy individuals' response times and visual attention. This study examined whether similar effects can be observed in a clinical population characterized by difficulties in both spatial representation and lexical processing. In an eye-tracking experiment,…

Language comprehension is remarkable in that we adapt easily to different forms of language use, from adapting to speakers' dialects, meanings of new slang words, and fictional worlds described in novels. While there is growing evidence comprehenders adapt their expectations for text during reading, the nature of these adaptation mechanisms…

The type of processing-resource allocation (TOPRA) model predicts that the semantic processing of new second language (L2) words can impede the learning of their forms while structural processing can promote it. Using this framework, the present study examined the effects of processing type (semantic, structural, control), exposure frequency (one…

The processing of structurally ambiguous sentences has proven resourceful in understanding the human parser. In particular, the resolution of globally and temporarily ambiguous relative clauses (RC) preceded by a complex noun phrase (NP) such as "Someone shot [the servant]NP1 of [the actress]NP2 [who was on the balcony]RC" has been found…

We investigated whether readers use the low-level cue of proper noun capitalization in the parafovea to infer syntactic category, and whether this results in an early update of the representation of a sentence's syntactic structure. Participants read sentences containing either a subject relative or object relative clause, in which the relative…

One of the most compelling pieces of evidence for the presence of predictions in language comprehension comes from event-related potential (ERP) studies which show that encountering an adjective whose gender marking is inconsistent with that of a highly expectable noun leads to an effect at the adjective. Until now the mechanism underlying this…