The visual world paradigm is one of the most influential paradigms to study real-time language processing. The present study tested whether visual world studies can be moved online, using PCIbex software (Zehr & Schwarz, 2018) and the WebGazer.js algorithm (Papoutsaki et al., 2016) to collect eye-movement data. Experiment 1 was a fixation task in which the participants looked at a fixation cross in multiple positions on the computer screen. Experiment 2 was a web-based replication of a visual world experiment by Dijkgraaf, Hartsuiker and Duyck (2017). Firstly, both experiments revealed that the spatial accuracy of the data allowed us to distinguish looks across the four quadrants of the computer screen. This suggest that the spatial resolution of WebGazer.js is fine-grained enough for most visual world experiments (which typically involve a two-by-two quadrant-based set-up of the visual display). Secondly, both experiments revealed a delay of roughly 300 ms in the time course of the eye movements, possibly caused by the internal processing speed of the browser or WebGazer.js. This delay can be problematic in studying questions that require a fine-grained temporal resolution and requires further investigation.
The visual world paradigm is one of the most influential paradigms to study real-time language processing. The present study tested whether visual world studies can be moved online, using PCIbex software (Zehr & Schwarz, 2018) and the WebGazer.js algorithm (Papoutsaki et al., 2016) to collect eye-movement data. Experiment 1 was a fixation task in which the participants looked at a fixation cross in multiple positions on the computer screen. Experiment 2 was a web-based replication of a visual world experiment by Dijkgraaf, Hartsuiker and Duyck (2017). Firstly, both experiments revealed that the spatial accuracy of the data allowed us to distinguish looks across the four quadrants of the computer screen. This suggest that the spatial resolution of WebGazer.js is fine-grained enough for most visual world experiments (which typically involve a four-by-four quadrant-based set-up of the visual display). Secondly, both experiments revealed a delay of roughly 300 ms in the time course of the eye movements, most likely caused by the internal processing speed of the browser or WebGazer.js. This delay can be problematic in studying questions that require a fine-grained temporal resolution and requires further investigation.
A doubly-quantified sentence like 'Every bear approached a tent is ambiguous': Did every bear approach a different tent, or did they approach the same tent? These two interpretations are assumed to be mentally represented as logical representations, which specify how the different quantifiers are assigned scope with respect to each other. Based on a structural priming study, Feiman and Snedeker (2016, Cognitive Psychology) argued that logical representations capture quantifier-specific combinatorial properties (e.g., the specification of every differs from the specification of each in logical representations). We re-examined this conclusion by testing logical representation priming in Dutch. Across four experiments, we observed that priming of logical representations emerged if the same quantifiers are repeated in prime and target, but also if the prime and target contained different quantifiers. However, logical representation priming between quantifiers emerged less consistently than priming within the same quantifier. More specifically, our results suggest that priming between quantifiers emerges more robustly if the participant is presented with quantifier variation in the prime trials than if they are presented with the same quantifier in all prime trials. When priming between quantifiers emerged, however, its strength was comparable to priming within the same quantifier. Therefore, we conclude that logical representations do not specify quantifier-specific biases in the assignment of scope.
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