Reviews recent research that investigates second language performance from the perspective of sentence processing (on-line comprehension studies) and word recognition. Concentrates on describing methods that employ reaction time measures as correlates of processing difficulty or knowledge representation. (Author/VWL)

Examines the nature and development of fluent second language English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) word integration skills involved in lower-level text processing. Four theoretical approaches to word integration and sentence processing in the first language and second language ESL literature are discussed in conjunction with a review of the relevant…

Two studies are discussed. The first tested the effect of intervening material on the processing of subject-verb number agreement in Alzheimer's Disease patients and in normal elderly adults. The second examined the effect of intervening material on the processing of pronoun-antecedent number agreement in the same patients. (Author/VWL)

This study investigated whether 9-month-olds used phonotactic cues to segment words from fluent speech. Results suggested that 9-month-olds use probabilistic phonotactics to segment speech into words, and that high- probability between-word clusters are interpreted as both word onsets and word offsets. (Author/KB)

Discussion of information handling tools focuses on natural language processing and linguistically-based techniques that help improve retrieval performance. Topics include difficulties in information retrieval, including poor questions and ambiguous words; phrase detection; disambiguation; automatic categorization; entity extraction; concept…

Tests the hypothesis that the use of the written mode increases the working memory load. Finds that participants recalled more words in the oral condition than in either the written mode or the "oral and categorization" conditions and that second graders performed better in the oral mode than in the "oral and drawing" condition. (SC)

Evaluates the current state of natural language processing information retrieval systems from the user's point of view, focusing on the structure and components of the systems' help mechanisms. Topics include user/system interaction; semantic parsing; syntactic parsing; semantic mapping; and concept matching. (Author/LRW)

Examined effects of limitations in processing resources on error detection in self-produced and other-produced speech by means of a dual task paradigm. A production experiment and a perception experiment were carried out. In both cases, the percentage of repaired errors was larger in the single task condition than in the dual task condition,…

Investigates the listening process of less proficient Japanese English-as-a-Foreign-Language learners. Focuses on whether they tend to rely on bottom-up or on top-down processing, on which opinions are divided among researchers. (Author/VWL)

The auditory word gating paradigm was used to examine the quality of the underlying phonological representations in dyslexic and average readers. Although dyslexic children showed age-related nonword and rapid naming deficits, they did not differ from the age-matched controls in the amount of acoustic-phonetic input required to identify sets of…

This study focuses on the question of whether structural analyses of verb-arguments are postponed until the head has been processed or initiated prior to the appearance of the verb. To explore this question in relation to a head-final language, a Japanese dative argument attachment ambiguity was examined in both a questionnaire study and a…

Argues that the lexical production system takes a compositional approach to processing morphologically complex forms in cases of productive word formation even if the semantics of the word cannot be derived formally from the meaning of its constituents. Evidence is presented from a case of acquired naming impairment in a patient whose ability to…

Examined three versions of the processing hypothesis, which explains the asymmetry of cross-language priming using masked primes. Results show that none of the processing accounts provides a satisfactory explanation for the asymmetry. (Author/VWL)

Introduces this issue of the journal, summarizing current issues in spoken word recognition. Argues a full understanding of the process of lexical access during speech comprehension will depend on resolving several issues: what is the form of the representations used for lexical access; how is phonological information coded in the mental lexicon;…

Presents a new dimension of lexical variation--contextual distinctiveness. CD is a corpus-derived summary measure of the frequency distribution of the contexts in which a word occurs, and it is naturally compatible with contextual theories of semantic representation and meaning. An experiment shows that CD is a better predictor of lexical decision…