Effects of lexical frequency and syntactic complexity in spoken-language comprehension: Evidence from the auditory moving-window technique.

Abstract

In 2 experiments, a new technique called the auditory moving window was used to investigate aspects of spoken-language processing. Participants paced their way through spoken sentences divided into word or wordlike segments, and their processing time for each segment was recorded. The 1st experiment demonstrated that high-frequency words in spoken sentences require less time to process than do low-frequency words. The 2nd experiment demonstrated that words in syntactically demanding contexts (i.e., the disambiguating word of so-called garden-path sentences) are processed longer than the same words in syntactically simpler contexts. Helpful prosodic information appeared to facilitate reanalysis of garden-path structures but did not seem to prevent the misanalysis. The implications of these findings for issues in spoken-language comprehension are discussed. The authors conclude that the auditory moving-window technique provides a useful tool for addressing largely unexplored issues in spoken-language comprehension. Most of the useful linguistic information that children receive during the several years preceding literacy is obtained through the auditory modality, and even as adults, the majority of our linguistic experience comes from spoken language. Given its predominance, one might expect that the study of how spoken language is understood would be far more advanced than the study of reading. However, this is clearly not so. Little is known about the processing of spoken language, particularly that of connected speech (i.e., phrases, sentences, and texts), in contrast to the large body of work on the processing of visual language. One reason for this state of affairs is that researchers have fewer adequate tasks for examining on-line language processing in the auditory domain. In this article, we present a new on-line task we have developed for studying spoken-language comprehension. We then describe the results of two experiments with this task. These experiments provide important new information about spoken-language comprehension, demonstrating that listeners are immediately sensitive to both lexical frequency and syntactic complexity during the auditory processing of coherent sentences. To see the need for a new task like the one we have developed, we briefly consider the contrasting situation in the field of reading. The availability of the eye-movement monitoring technique has led to a large body of data concerning basic

Resource allocation during spoken discourse processing: Effects of age and passage difficulty as revealed by self-paced listening

“…It is noteworthy that a small effect of word frequency was found in our experiments. Ferreira, Henderson, et al (1996) found an effect of word frequency for young adults using single-word segments, while we used multiple-word segments. It is possible that the use of multiple-word segments diluted the effects of word frequency, although the data suggest that this did not occur.…”

“…Using this technique, however, Ferreira, Henderson, et al (1996) have shown positive effects for the influence of prosodic information. This suggests that, although pause information might be reduced, presenting spoken language in segments does not appreciably disrupt the perception of intonation, vowel lengthenings, and stress patterns that accompany natural speech (Ferreira, Henderson, et aI., 1996).…”

“…Of interest is the duration of listeners' pauses between the end ofone segment and their initiation of the subsequent segment. Ferreira and colleagues have used this technique to examine listening behavior for word-by-word presentations of sentences and have found that, similar to word-by-word reading techniques, AMW is sensitive to lexical frequency effects and syntactic garden path effects (Ferreira, Henderson, et al, 1996).…”

What makes listening difficult? Factors affecting second language listening comprehension

“…listeners take longer to process low-frequency words relative to high-frequency words (e.g., Ferreira, Henderson, Anes, Weeks, & McFarlane, 1996). Thus, if a passage contains a number of low-frequency words, this may impose additional demands on L2 listeners' working memory as they attempt to recognize the low frequency word (i.e., access the lexicon).…”

Eye movements of young and older adults during reading.

“…Waters and Caplan (1996, 1997) have directly examined the hypothesis that working memory limitations affect older adults' ability to process complex sentences. These studies have used the auditory moving windows paradigm (Ferreira, Henderson, Anes, Weeks, & McFarlane, 1996). This technique allows the listener to start and stop the presentation of sentence and permits the analysis of phrase-by-phrase listening times, analogous to visual moving windows paradigms which permit the analysis of word-by-word or phrase-by-phrase reading times.…”