A behavioural dataset for studying individual differences in language skills

Abstract

This resource contains data from 112 Dutch adults (18–29 years of age) who completed the Individual Differences in Language Skills test battery that included 33 behavioural tests assessing language skills and domain-general cognitive skills likely involved in language tasks. The battery included tests measuring linguistic experience (e.g. vocabulary size, prescriptive grammar knowledge), general cognitive skills (e.g. working memory, non-verbal intelligence) and linguistic processing skills (word production/comprehension, sentence production/comprehension). Testing was done in a lab-based setting resulting in high quality data due to tight monitoring of the experimental protocol and to the use of software and hardware that were optimized for behavioural testing. Each participant completed the battery twice (i.e., two test days of four hours each). We provide the raw data from all tests on both days as well as pre-processed data that were used to calculate various reliability measures (including internal consistency and test-retest reliability). We encourage other researchers to use this resource for conducting exploratory and/or targeted analyses of individual differences in language and general cognitive skills.

Exploring Individual Differences in Recognizing Idiomatic Expressions in Context

“…These effects were seen in both types of analyses we conducted-based on the first encounter of a given item (main analysis) and based on the full dataset (see Appendix C). While the fact that better reading ability led to overall faster reading of idiom-final and spill-over words is not necessarily a novel finding, it does demonstrate that the present self-paced reading experiment (conducted via the internet) indeed picked up individual differences as measured in a different study, which was conducted almost one year before the present experiment (Hintz et al, 2020).…”

“…In sum, the present data resource offers many exciting avenues for conducting additional exploratory and/or targeted analyses, especially when linked to the dataset provided by Hintz et al (2020). We hope that researchers make use of it to advance the field of idiom…”

“…Before running the present study, we conducted a principal component analysis (using SPSS, version 27) on the test scores provided by Hintz et al (2020). That is, for each of the five constructs (linguistic knowledge, processing speed, visual working memory, sentence comprehension and prediction skills, word reading skills), we tested how strongly the tests assumed to measure a given construct loaded on its factor and how much variance was explained (Table 1; see Appendix A for descriptive statistics and reliability measures of each included test and Figure 1 for correlations between the predictor variables).…”

“…All 50 experimental and 25 filler trials with preceding contexts were tested for plausibility in a rating study conducted via the internet (within the Pavlovia web environment, Peirce et al, 2019), involving 56 Dutch native speakers who were paid €4 for participation. These participants did not take part in the main experiment or the study by Hintz et al (2020). Participants were asked to judge how well the second sentence (e.g., containing the ambiguous idiom) followed-up on the figuratively or literally biasing context (Dutch: 'Hoe goed volgt de tweede zin op de eerste?').…”

“…Our participants were native speakers of Dutch, who had recently taken part in a large-scale individual-differences study where they completed 33 tests measuring linguistic and general cognitive skills (Hintz et al, 2020). Hintz et al (2020) used a latent-variable approach with multiple tests tapping into the same cognitive construct. For the present analyses, we selected 19 of the 33 tests 1 that appeared relevant in the context of present study (cf.…”