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Lexico-Syntactic Processing in Developing and Skilled Readers of First and Second/Foreign Languages

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A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Neurolinguistics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2023) | Viewed by 17969

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Montserrat Comesaña

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Guest Editor

CIPsi, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
Interests: bilingualism; second language acquisition; visual word recognition and reading

Dr. Ana Rita Sá-Leite

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Guest Editor

Department of Experimental Psychology, Research Center for Mind, Brain and Behaviour, University of Granada, Granada, Spain
Interests: My main line of research explores the representation and processing of grammatical and natural gender across the continuum of animacy in both language production and comprehension. My aim is to provide clarity regarding the long-standing debate on the relative weight of the lexico-semantic and lexico-syntactic dimensions of gender by measuring response times and examining the neural correlates of gender effects obtained during the lexical access of nouns (Sá-Leite et al., 2021, 2022). Ultimately, I am exploring the nature of gender whilst assessing both monolingual and bilingual/multilingual populations and clarifying related issues regarding the links established between the levels of lexical encoding and the interaction between languages at the grammatical level (Sá-Leite et al., 2019, 2020). Another line of my research that is closely linked to the previous one is that of gender transparency: I am interested in understanding how the morpho-phonological characteristics of languages determine (1) the way and ease languages are acquired during first and second/foreign language acquisition, and (2) the way gender is retrieved during nouns' lexical access (Sá-Leite, 2021).

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

I am serving as editor of a research topic (similar to an online Special Issue) for Brain Sciences, entitled “Lexico-Syntactic Processing in Developing and Skilled Readers of First and Second/Foreign Languages ”, together with co-editor Dr. Ana Rita Sá-Leite (University of Granada).

On behalf of the editorial team, we would like to invite you to contribute a paper to this collection—we firmly believe a contribution from you would greatly benefit our Research Topic. We welcome a variety of article types, including Original Research, Brief Research Report, Reviews (standard, systematic), Opinion or General Commentary.

The aim of the collection is to bring together the latest articles from researchers examining the way skilled as well as normal and non-normal developing readers access abstract lexico-syntactic representations of words in their first (L1) and second/foreign (L2/FL) languages. Attention is given to both linguistic and non-linguistic factors. Pedagogical implications of empirical evidence are also considered. The aim is not only to inform and refine theories and models of lexical access but also to identify specific processes that L1 and L2/FL teaching should focus on to improve language proficiency.

Prof. Dr. Montserrat Comesaña
Dr. Ana Rita Sá-Leite
Guest Editors

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Keywords

language processing
lexico-syntactic representations
first and second/foreign languages
skilled and normal and non-normal developing readers

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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13 pages, 412 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Evidence Accumulation Account of Masked Translation Priming in Two Bilingual Populations

by Camille Scrimshire, Sara Alicia Amador, Andrea González-García Aldariz, Galilea Meza and Pablo Gomez

Brain Sci. 2023, 13(7), 1066; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13071066 - 13 Jul 2023

Viewed by 1335

Abstract

This manuscript addresses the phenomenon of masked priming and the cognitive process of switching from Spanish to English while reading in sequential bilingual texts compared to heritage speakers. A lexical decision task was employed in the present study with masked translation priming, which serves as a valuable tool for elucidating the orthographic and lexical processes involved in the initial stages of reading. This study builds upon previous research conducted on monolingual masked priming, which consistently demonstrates shifts in the response time (RT) distributions when comparing related and unrelated primes. Within the framework of a diffusion model, we implemented two theoretical positions. First, we posited that translation priming operates at the orthographic level, resulting in enhanced efficiency during the encoding process. Second, we explored the possibility that translation priming operates at the semantic level, influencing the accumulation of evidence during the lexical decision task. The findings of the present study indicate that translation priming elicits outcomes similar to those observed in monolingual priming paradigms. Specifically, we observed that translation priming facilitation is manifested as shifts in the RT distributions. These findings are interpreted to suggest that the benefits derived from the encoding process are not specific to the accessed lexicon following a brief stimulus presentation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lexico-Syntactic Processing in Developing and Skilled Readers of First and Second/Foreign Languages)

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14 pages, 1310 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Gender Congruency Effects in Spanish: Behavioral Evidence from Noun Phrase Production

by Ruixue Wu and Niels O. Schiller

Brain Sci. 2023, 13(4), 696; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13040696 - 21 Apr 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2091

Abstract

Grammatical gender as a lexico-syntactic feature has been well explored, and the gender congruency effect has been observed in many languages (e.g., Dutch, German, Croatian, Czech, etc.). Yet, so far, this effect has not been found in Romance languages such as Italian, French, and Spanish. It has been argued that the absence of the effect in Romance languages is due the fact that the gender-marking definite article is not exclusively dependent on the grammatical gender of the head noun, but also on its onset phonology (e.g., lo zucchero is ‘the sugar’ in Italian, not il zucchero, il being the default masculine determiner in Italian). For Spanish, this argument has also been made because feminine words starting with a stressed /a/ take the masculine article (e.g., el água is ‘the water’, not la água). However, the number of words belonging to that set is rather small in Spanish, and it may be questionable whether or not this feature can be taken as an argument for the absence of a gender congruency effect in Spanish. In this study, we investigated the gender congruency effect in native Spanish noun phrase production. We measured 30 native Spanish speakers’ naming latencies in four conditions via the picture–word interference paradigm by manipulating gender congruency (i.e., gender-congruent vs. gender-incongruent) and semantic relatedness (i.e., semantically related vs. semantically unrelated). The results revealed significantly longer naming latencies in gender-incongruent and semantically related conditions compared to gender-congruent and semantically unrelated conditions. This result suggests that grammatical gender as a lexico-syntactic feature in Spanish is used to competitively select determiners in native Spanish speakers’ noun phrases. Our findings provide an important behavioral piece of evidence for the gender congruency effect in Romance languages. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lexico-Syntactic Processing in Developing and Skilled Readers of First and Second/Foreign Languages)

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21 pages, 2735 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Are Translation Equivalents Always Activated When Bilinguals Perform a Task in One of Their Languages? Behavioral and ERP Evidence of the Role of the Task

by Pilar Ferré, Josep Albert Obrador and Josep Demestre

Brain Sci. 2023, 13(3), 432; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13030432 - 2 Mar 2023

Viewed by 1446

Abstract

This study investigates the extent to which highly proficient Spanish–Catalan bilinguals activate Spanish translation equivalents when they are presented with Catalan words. Participants performed a translation recognition task (Experiment 1) or a primed lexical decision task (Experiment 2) where the relationship between the first presented (Catalan) word and the second presented (Spanish) word was manipulated. Semantic and form relationships between the first and the second words were examined. Semantic relatedness produced a behavioral interference effect in the translation recognition task and a facilitation effect in the primed lexical decision task. The semantic manipulation also affected the N400 component. Form relatedness produced a behavioral interference effect only in the translation recognition task, which was accompanied by a modulation of the LPC component. In contrast, there were no effects of the formal manipulation in the primed lexical decision task. These results, which are discussed in relation to the revised hierarchical model (RHM), suggest that activation of translation equivalents is a by-product of the type of task. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lexico-Syntactic Processing in Developing and Skilled Readers of First and Second/Foreign Languages)

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14 pages, 557 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Is There an Early Morphological Decomposition during L2 Lexical Access? A Meta-Analysis on the Morphological Priming Effect

by Ana Isabel Fernandes, Karlos Luna, Ana Paula Soares and Montserrat Comesaña

Brain Sci. 2023, 13(1), 127; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13010127 - 11 Jan 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2237

Abstract

A considerable body of experimental data currently exists on the representation and processing of derived words. However, no theoretical account has led to a consensus so far, due in part to inconsistencies in empirical results which show either the presence or the absence of signs of early morphological decomposition during lexical access. In this paper, we present the results of a meta-analysis that sought to examine the robustness of the masked morphological priming effect (MMP) in native and non-native speakers. This effect is indexed by faster responses to targets preceded by morphologically related primes vs. unrelated primes (e.g., fighter-FIGHT < needle-FIGHT), and is perhaps the most widespread effect used to test whether speakers of a given language are sensitive to the morphological components of words at early stages of lexical access. To this end, we selected 10 masked priming lexical decision studies (16 experiments) conducted with native and non-native speakers. Variables such as prime duration and level of L2 proficiency were considered in the analyses to assess their impact on the MMP effect. Results showed significant MMP effects, which were restricted to native speakers. No modulations were found for the prime duration. Results are interpreted in light of prevalent models of complex word processing. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lexico-Syntactic Processing in Developing and Skilled Readers of First and Second/Foreign Languages)

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18 pages, 1722 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Processing of Chinese Base-Generated-Topic Sentences by L1-Korean Speakers: An Eye-Tracking Study

by Kaiyan Song, Hui Chang and Yuxia Wang

Brain Sci. 2022, 12(11), 1573; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12111573 - 18 Nov 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1999

Abstract

According to the shallow structure hypothesis (SSH), adult L2 learners rely more on lexical-semantic and pragmatic information but less so on syntactic information in online language processing, ending up with shallower syntactic representation. To test the SSH, we conducted an eye-tracking experiment on L1-Korean L2-Chinese learners with native Chinese speakers as the baseline, investigating their processing of Chinese base-generated-topic sentences (BGT). The results show that both the intermediate and advanced Korean learners of Chinese are sensitive to and can make use of syntactic information, but only the advanced learners are sensitive to the semantic constraint when processing Chinese BGT sentences, providing evidence against the SSH. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lexico-Syntactic Processing in Developing and Skilled Readers of First and Second/Foreign Languages)

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13 pages, 1722 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Preserved Executive Control in Ageing: The Role of Literacy Experience

by Ana I. Pérez, Georgia Fotiadou and Ianthi Tsimpli

Brain Sci. 2022, 12(10), 1392; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12101392 - 14 Oct 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1803

Abstract

Healthy ageing is commonly accompanied by cognitive decline affecting several domains such as executive control, whereas certain verbal skills remain relatively preserved. Interestingly, recent scientific research has shown that some intellectual activities may be linked to beneficial effects, delaying or even alleviating cognitive decline in the elderly. Thirty young (age: M = 23) and thirty old (age: M = 66) adults were assessed in executive control (switching) and literacy experience (print exposure). First, we tried to confirm whether healthy ageing was generally associated with deficits in switching by looking at mixing cost effects, to then investigate if individual differences in print exposure explained variation in that age-related mixing costs. Both accuracy and reaction times mixing cost indexes demonstrated larger cost in old (but not in young) adults when switching from local to global information. More importantly, this cost effect was not present in old adults with higher print exposure (reaction times). Our findings suggest literacy experience accumulated across the life-span may act as a cognitive reserve proxy to prevent executive control decline. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lexico-Syntactic Processing in Developing and Skilled Readers of First and Second/Foreign Languages)

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28 pages, 1180 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Online Processing of Korean Case by Native Korean Speakers and Second Language Learners as Revealed by Eye Movements

by Cheryl Frenck-Mestre, Hyeree Choo, Ana Zappa, Julia Herschensohn, Seung-Kyung Kim, Alain Ghio and Sungryung Koh

Brain Sci. 2022, 12(9), 1230; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12091230 - 11 Sep 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2282

Abstract

Previous experimental studies have reported clear differences between native speakers and second language (L2) learners as concerns their capacity to extract and exploit morphosyntactic information during online processing. We examined the online processing of nominal case morphology in Korean by native speakers and L2 learners by contrasting canonical (SOV) and scrambled (OSV) structures, across auditory (Experiment 1) and written (Experiment 2) formats. Moreover, we compared different instances of nominal case marking: accusative (NOM-ACC) and dative (NOM-DAT). During auditory processing, Koreans showed incremental processing based on case information, with no effect of scrambling or specific case marking. In contrast, the L2 group showed no evidence of predictive processing and was negatively impacted by scrambling, especially for the accusative. During reading, both Koreans and the L2 group showed a cost of scrambling on first pass reading times, specifically for the dative. Lastly, L2 learners showed better comprehension for scrambled dative than accusative structures across formats. The current set of results show that format, the specific case marking, and word order all affect the online processing of nominal case morphology. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lexico-Syntactic Processing in Developing and Skilled Readers of First and Second/Foreign Languages)

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9 pages, 640 KiB

Open AccessBrief Report

Perceptual Contiguity Does Not Modulate Matched-Case Identity-Priming Effects in Lexical Decision

by Marta Vergara-Martínez, María Fernández-López and Manuel Perea

Brain Sci. 2023, 13(2), 336; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13020336 - 16 Feb 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1344

Abstract

In recent studies with the masked priming lexical decision task, matched-case identity-priming effects occur for nonwords but not for words (e.g., nonwords: ERTAR-ERTAR faster than ertar-ERTAR; words: ALTAR-ALTAR produces similar response times as altar-ALTAR). This dissociation is thought to result from lexical feedback influencing orthographic representations in word processing. As nonwords do not receive this feedback, bottom-up processing of prime–target integration leads to matched-case effects. However, the underlying mechanism of this effect in nonwords remains unclear. In this study, we added a color congruency manipulation across the prime and target in the matched-case identity-priming design. We aimed to determine whether the case effects originate at the early stages of prime–target perceptual integration or due to bottom-up activation of case-specific letter detectors. Results replicated the previous dissociation between words and nonwords regarding the matched-case identity effect. Additionally, we did not find any modulation of these effects by prime–target color congruency. These findings suggest that the locus of the matched-case identity effect is at an orthographic level of representation that encodes case information. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lexico-Syntactic Processing in Developing and Skilled Readers of First and Second/Foreign Languages)

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9 pages, 890 KiB

Open AccessBrief Report

The Use of Commas in Secondary-Education Students and Its Relationship with Reading Comprehension: The Case of Spanish

by Ana Marcet, Verónica Moreno, Carmen Rodríguez-Gonzalo and Manuel Perea

Brain Sci. 2022, 12(11), 1564; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12111564 - 17 Nov 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2173

Abstract

The correct use of punctuation marks in secondary-school students is essential for the comprehension of written texts and, therefore, for the students’ academic success. However, the examination of this issue has often been overlooked in the literature. In the present study, we focused on the progression of comma usage (i.e., a punctuation mark that is often challenging to master) and examined its relation to reading comprehension. A sample of first- and fourth-year secondary-education students from Spain (N = 115) punctuated brief texts in which commas had been previously omitted. The original texts included various types of mandatory commas in Spanish. We also obtained a reading comprehension score from a standardized reading test. Results show that secondary-education students often did not correctly place the commas, with first-year secondary-education students only succeeding in the correct placement of commas 54.5% of the time in (Year 8 in the UK system). This figure increased to 80.9% in fourth-year secondary-education students (Year 11 in the UK system). As a control, this figure rose to 91.5% in first-year university students. Critically, better comprehenders were the ones with better use of punctuation marks (r = 0.33). These results are useful for developing teaching methods to improve writing/reading skills in secondary-school students. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lexico-Syntactic Processing in Developing and Skilled Readers of First and Second/Foreign Languages)

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