Cognitive architectures and language acquisition: A case study in pronoun comprehension

Rij, Jacolien van; Rijn, Hedderik van; Hendriks, Petra

doi:10.1017/s0305000909990560

Cited by 51 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…We expect that more cognitive effort is needed when processing a pronominal subject or object compared to a non-ambiguous subject NP or reflexive object (cf., e.g. Hendriks, Van Rijn, & Valkenier, 2007;Van Rij, Van Rijn, & Hendriks, 2010;Van Rij et al, 2013), a difference that should be reflected in fewer topic-continuation interpretations in referent selection and in longer response times (RTs).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pupillary responses reflect ambiguity resolution in pronoun processing

Vogelzang

Hendriks

Rijn³

2016

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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The resolution of ambiguous pronouns is influenced by the preceding linguistic discourse. This raises the question whether the processing of an object pronoun is also influenced by the preceding sentential subject. In an experiment with Dutch adults, we recorded pupil dilation as a measure of the cognitive effort involved in resolving pronominal versus full noun phrase (NP) subjects and pronominal versus reflexive objects. Our results indicate that more effort is needed to resolve a pronominal subject or object compared to a less ambiguous full NP subject or reflexive object. These results support the hypothesis that the ambiguity of a referring expression influences processing. Contrary to our expectations, no evidence was found that the form of the subject influences the processing of a subsequent pronominal object. We conclude that pupillary responses reflect ambiguity resolution in pronoun processing, and that the process to resolve pronouns commences as soon as the pronoun is encountered. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pupillary responses reflect ambiguity resolution in pronoun processing

Vogelzang

Hendriks

Rijn³

2016

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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“…Van Rij, van Rijn and Hendriks (2010) found that the classification of children into different subgroups (based on task performance) was predictive of their linguistic behavior.…”

Section: Classification Into Subgroupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Chien & Wexler, 1990). A yes-bias results in above chance performance on match items but below chance performance on mismatch items (see van Rij et al, 2010, for discussion and a computational account of the yes-bias). No other effects were significant.…”

Section: Incorrect Performance Groupmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Koster 1993;Philip & Coopmans 1996;van Rij, van Rijn & Hendriks 2010), though recent work by Ruigendijk et al (2010) failed to find it with German children. This is unexpected,…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast to adults, children often fail to consider their own perspective as a listener and in addition consider the perspective of the speaker. Van Rij et al (2010) argue on the basis of computational simulations and an experiment testing the predictions of their simulations that children's inability to optimize bidirectionally is caused by insufficient processing speed due to lack of linguistic experience.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Is the Dutch Delay of Principle B Effect dependent on verb type?

Akker

Hoeks²,

Spenader³

et al. 2012

AVT

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Dutch children interpret reflexives correctly from age 3 or 4 on, but frequently misinterpret object pronouns as coreferring with the local subject until age 6. We investigated whether this so-called Delay of Principle B Effect (DPBE) differs by verb type. We tested 47 children between 4 and 6 years old with regular transitive verbs (e.g., to hit) and grooming verbs (e.g, to wash), verbs that often refer to reflexive actions. In general, children displaying the DPBE performed equally well on both verb types. In contrast, children who performed poorly on reflexives as well as pronouns made significantly more errors interpreting pronouns with grooming verbs than with transitive verbs. This suggests that even young children are aware of the tendency for certain events to be self-directed. However, our results show they only apply this information when interpreting pronouns, indicating that they also use their grammatical knowledge.2

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Anaphora and the Case for Emergentism

O’Grady

2015

The Handbook of Language Emergence

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IntroductionThis essay focuses on two questions of fundamental importance to cognitive science.i. Why does language have the particular properties that it does?ii. How is language acquired in response to the particular types of experience that children receive in the first years of life?In a sense, the answer to both questions is obvious. Human language is the way it is, and children learn it so successfully, because it is a good fit for the brain. Everyone believes this, and the point is frequently made in one form or another by scholars whose views otherwise differ (e.g., Chomsky 2007, Christiansen & Chater 2008, to take just two examples). But what features of the human brain create and mediate the fit? The list of possible contributors, summarized by Chomsky ( 2005), is practically self-evident: (i) inborn principles of grammar, if there are any; (ii) a capacity for extracting regularities from experience; and (iii) the influence of perception, processing, economy, and cognition (the so-called 'third factor').The first factor has been the central concern of work on classic Universal Grammar (UG), as developed by Chomsky (1981) and many others. Within much of cognitive science, though, increasing attention has been devoted to the second factor, as evidenced by the growth of research focused on statistical learning (e.g.,

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Cognitive architectures and language acquisition: A case study in pronoun comprehension

Cited by 51 publications

References 30 publications

Pupillary responses reflect ambiguity resolution in pronoun processing

Pupillary responses reflect ambiguity resolution in pronoun processing

Is the Dutch Delay of Principle B Effect dependent on verb type?

Anaphora and the Case for Emergentism

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