We tested the frequent assumption that the difficulty of word retrieval increases when a speaker is being observed and evaluated. We modified the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) so that participants believed that its evaluative observation components continued throughout the duration of a subsequent word retrieval task, and measured participants'…

This study examined the linguistic dimensions of comprehensibility and perceived fluency in the context of L2 argumentative speech elicited from 40 Japanese-speaking learners of English. Their speaking performance was judged by 10 inexperienced native speakers of English for comprehensibility and perceived fluency, and was also objectively…

Three experiments examine whether a naturalistic reading task can induce long-lasting changes of syntactic patterns in memory. Judgment of grammatical acceptability is used as an indirect test of memory for sentences that are identical or only syntactically similar to those read earlier. In previous research (Luka & Barsalou, 2005) both sorts of…

People differ in the size of their social network, and thus in the properties of the linguistic input they receive. This article examines whether differences in social network size influence individuals' linguistic skills in their native language, focusing on global comprehension of evaluative language. Study 1 exploits the natural variation in…

This study investigated the effect of repeated evaluation and repeated exposure on grammatical acceptability ratings for both acceptable and unacceptable sentence types. In Experiment 1, subjects in the Experimental group rated multiple examples of two ungrammatical sentence types (ungrammatical binding and double object with dative-only verb),…

Purpose: This article outlines the author's conceptualization of the key mechanisms that are engaged in the processing of spoken language, referred to as the spoken language processing model. The act of processing what is heard is very complex and involves the successful intertwining of auditory, cognitive, and language mechanisms. Spoken language…

A series of eye-tracking and categorization experiments investigated the use of speaking-rate information in the segmentation of Dutch ambiguous-word sequences. Juncture phonemes with ambiguous durations (e.g., [s] in "eens (s)peer," "once (s)pear," [t] in "nooit (t)rap," "never staircase/quick") were…

This paper evaluates two classes of hypotheses about how people prosodically segment utterances: (1) meaning-based proposals, with a focus on Watson and Gibson's (2004) proposal, according to which speakers tend to produce boundaries before and after long constituents; and (2) balancing proposals, according to which speakers tend to produce…

This meta-analysis integrates 296 effect sizes reported in eye-tracking research on expertise differences in the comprehension of visualizations. Three theories were evaluated: Ericsson and Kintsch's ("Psychol Rev" 102:211-245, 1995) theory of long-term working memory, Haider and Frensch's ("J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cognit" 25:172-190, 1999)…

e-Learning has some restrictions on how learning performance is assessed. Online testing is usually in the form of multiple-choice questions, without any essay type of learning assessment. Major reasons for employing multiple-choice tasks in e-learning include ease of implementation and ease of managing learner's responses. To address this…

There is abundant evidence from behavioral and neurophysiological experiments for the distinction of natural versus artifactual categories and a gender-specific difference: women's performances in cognitive tasks increase when natural categories are used, whereas men's performances increase with artifactual categories. Here, we used the semantic…

Grounded in state-of-the-art research, this book explores how English language learners develop both the oral language and literacy skills necessary for school success. Chapters examine the cognitive bases of English acquisition, and how the process is different for children from alphabetic (such as Spanish) and nonalphabetic (such as Chinese)…

Through a dialog argues that transformational grammar should not be used as the linguistic description in university courses in applied linguistics because it has no particular validity as a pedagogical grammar, because it has a narrow view of the nature of language, and because it is theoretically inadequate.(SED)

Reports on an attempt to informally assess the practicality of an interactive, language processing model for curriculum development.

Three experiments tested four- to seven-year olds' ability to understand and reconcile message-desire discrepant stories. The findings suggest that young children can refrain from a performative response and, as a consequence, attend to literal meaning under some conditions when evaluating utterances. (MDM)