Resolving Conflicts Between Syntax and Plausibility in Sentence Comprehension

Resolving syntactic-semantic conflicts: comprehension and processing patterns by deaf Chinese readers

The current study combined sentence plausibility judgment and self-paced reading tasks to examine the comprehension strategies and processing patterns of Chinese deaf individuals when comprehending written Chinese sentences with syntactic-semantic cue conflicts. Similar to findings from previous crosslinguistic studies on deaf readers, the Chinese deaf readers showed great variability in their comprehension strategies, with only 38% robustly relying on syntactic cues. Regardless of their overall comprehension preferences, the deaf readers all showed additional processing efforts as reflected by longer reading time at the verb regions when they relied on the syntactic cues. Those with less robust reliance on syntactic cues also showed longer reading time at the verb regions even when they relied on the semantic cues, suggesting sensitivity to the syntactic cues regardless of the comprehension strategy. These findings suggest that deaf readers in general endure more processing burden while resolving conflicting syntactic and semantic cues, likely due to their overall high reliance on semantic information during sentence comprehension. Increased processing burden thus may contribute to an overall tendency of over-reliance on semantic cues when comprehending sentences with cue conflicts.

Age differences in the recruitment of syntactic analysis and semantic plausibility during sentence comprehension

Syntactic analysis and semantic plausibility provide important cues to build the meaningful representation of sentences. The purpose of this research is to explore the age-related differences in the use of syntactic analysis and semantic plausibility during sentence comprehension under different working memory load conditions. A sentence judgment task was implemented among a group of older and younger adults. Semantic plausibility (plausible, implausible) and syntactic consistency (consistent, inconsistent) were manipulated in the experimental stimuli, and working memory load (high, low) was varied by manipulating the presentation of the stimuli. The study revealed a stronger effect of semantic plausibility in older adults than in younger adults when working memory load was low. But no significant age difference in the effect of syntactic consistency was discovered. When working memory load was high, there was a stronger effect of semantic plausibility and a weaker effect of syntactic consistency in older adults than in younger adults, which suggests that older adults relied more on semantic plausibility and less on syntactic analysis than younger adults. The findings indicate that there is an age-related increase in the use of semantic plausibility, and a reduction in the use of syntactic analysis as working memory load increases.

A New Memory Perspective on the Sentence Comprehension Deficits of School-Age Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Implications for Theory, Assessment, and Intervention

Purpose The nature of the relationship between memory and sentence comprehension in school-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD) has been unclear. We present a novel perspective that highlights the relational influences of fluid intelligence, controlled attention, working memory (WM), and long-term memory (LTM) on sentence comprehension in children with and without DLD. This perspective has new and important implications for theory, assessment, and intervention. Method We review a large-scale study of children with and without DLD that focused on the connections between cognition, memory, and sentence comprehension. We also summarize a new model of these relationships. Results Our new model suggests that WM serves as a conduit through which syntactic knowledge in LTM, controlled attention, and general pattern recognition indirectly influence sentence comprehension in both children with DLD and typically developing children. For typically developing children, language-based LTM and fluid intelligence indirectly influence sentence comprehension. However, for children with DLD, controlled attention plays a larger indirect role. Conclusions WM plays a key role in children's ability to apply their syntactic knowledge when comprehending canonical and noncanonical sentences. Our new model has important implications for the assessment of sentence comprehension and for the treatment of larger sentence comprehension deficits.

Animacy effects extend to working memory: results from serial order recall tasks

Words that represent animate entities (e.g., dog) are recalled from long-term memory more accurately than words representing inanimate entities (e.g., pan). In this research, we examined whether the animacy effect extends to working memory (WM). The potential roles of WM maintenance strategies (rehearsal and directed attention) were also examined. Participants performed serial order recall tasks with sets of 3, 4, 5 or 6 words that were either animate or inanimate. In stage 1 of Experiment 1, participants received no instructions regarding how to maintain the words. In stage 2, participants received either no instructions, sub-vocal rehearsal or directed attention instructions. In all instruction groups and at both stages, significant animacy effects were observed at set sizes of 4, 5 and 6 but not set size 3. The animacy effect was larger at set size 5 than other set sizes. In Experiment 2, participants completed the task with and without articulatory suppression. In both conditions, animacy effects were observed at set sizes 4, 5 and 6, but not at set size 3. The magnitude of the animacy effect declined as set size increased from 4 to 6. Animacy appears to enhance serial recall, but the effect is not dependent on rehearsal.

Cognitive predictors of sentence comprehension in children with and without developmental language disorder: Implications for assessment and treatment

Purpose: This paper summarises the clinical ramification of a large-scale study of the direct and indirect (mediated) influences of four cognitive mechanisms that are relevant to the comprehension of syntactic structure by school-age children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Method: A total of 117 children with DLD and 117 propensity-matched typically-developing (TD) children completed sentence comprehension tasks and cognitive tasks related to fluid reasoning, controlled attention, speed of processing, phonological short-term memory (pSTM), complex working memory (cWM) and language knowledge in long-term memory (LTM). Result: Results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated that the most salient characteristics of cognitive processing in children with and without DLD were represented by a measurement model that included four latent variables: fluid reasoning, controlled attention, complex WM and language knowledge in LTM. Structural equation modelling (SEM) indicated that complex WM mediated the relationship between sentence comprehension and fluid reasoning, controlled attention and long-term memory for language knowledge. Conclusion: Our research suggests that the most salient characteristics of cognitive processing in children with and without DLD can be condensed to four cognitive factors: fluid reasoning, controlled attention, complex WM and language knowledge in LTM. We suggest a few measures that clinicians can use to reliably assess these factors, and we summarise a functional intervention programme that is designed to promote the strategic organisation of information in ways that challenge verbal complex WM and LTM processes that support language comprehension and use.

Structural Relationship Between Cognitive Processing and Syntactic Sentence Comprehension in Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder

PURPOSE

We assessed the potential direct and indirect (mediated) influences of 4 cognitive mechanisms we believe are theoretically relevant to canonical and noncanonical sentence comprehension of school-age children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD).

METHOD

One hundred seventeen children with DLD and 117 propensity-matched typically developing (TD) children participated. Comprehension was indexed by children identifying the agent in implausible sentences. Children completed cognitive tasks indexing the latent predictors of fluid reasoning (FLD-R), controlled attention (CATT), complex working memory (cWM), and long-term memory language knowledge (LTM-LK).

RESULTS

Structural equation modeling revealed that the best model fit was an indirect model in which cWM mediated the relationship among FLD-R, CATT, LTM-LK, and sentence comprehension. For TD children, comprehension of both sentence types was indirectly influenced by FLD-R (pattern recognition) and LTM-LK (linguistic chunking). For children with DLD, canonical sentence comprehension was indirectly influenced by LTM-LK and CATT, and noncanonical comprehension was indirectly influenced just by CATT.

CONCLUSIONS

cWM mediates sentence comprehension in children with DLD and TD children. For TD children, comprehension occurs automatically through pattern recognition and linguistic chunking. For children with DLD, comprehension is cognitively effortful. Whereas canonical comprehension occurs through chunking, noncanonical comprehension develops on a word-by-word basis.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7178939.