The Processing of Ambiguous Verbs in School-Aged Children and Adults

Abstract

Objectives: When we read texts, it is necessary to access the meanings of various words. During this process, the meanings related to the context are facilitated, and the meanings unrelated to that context are suppressed. This study investigated whether children differ from young adults in the processing of ambiguous verbs. Methods: This study was conducted with 25 children in 5th to 6th grade and 17 young adults. Response accuracy and reaction time were measured using a sensicality judgment task, where the participant judges if a sentence makes sense, or is nonsense, after reading it. This task was divided into consistent and inconsistent conditions depending on the consistency of meaning of ambiguous verbs in the priming and the target sentences. Results: Both children and adults showed lower accuracy and slower response times in the inconsistent condition than in the consistent condition. Children showed lower accuracy and slower response times than adults in both conditions. Children showed remarkably low accuracy in the inconsistent condition. Conclusion: Children performed poorly compared to adults in reading comprehension, but tended to use contexts to process word meanings like adults. However, they showed difficulty suppressing information irrelevant to the context of sentences. It means that premature suppression ability can cause failures in reading comprehension for children.

Characteristics of Semantic Processing in Children with Reading Difficulties through Grammaticality Judgment Task

“…이들과 다른 견지에서 보면, 읽은 내용을 효율적으로 이해하기 위해서는 불필요한 정보를 빠르게 억제하는 능력이 중요하다 하였 다 (Gernsbacher & Faust, 1991;Gernsbacher & Robertson, 1995;Gernsbacher, Robertson, & Werner, 2001;Gernsbacher, Varner, & Faust, 1990;Khanna & Boland, 2010) (Gernsbacher & Faust, 1991;Gernsbacher & Robertson, 1995;Gernsbacher et al, 1990) (Betjemann & Keenan, 2008;Guldenoglu, Kargin, & Miller, 2012;Hahn, Hwang, & Ko, 2018;Joo, Hwang, & Choi, 2020;Nation & Snowling, 1999;Park, Hwang, & Ko, 2017) (Hwang, 2020;Ko, Choi, & Hwang, 2010;Ryu, Hwang, & Ko, 2018). (Henderson, Snowling, & Clarke, 2013) (Gernsbacher et al, 1990;Grensbacher et al, 2001;& Faust, 1991;Gernsbacher & Robertson, 1995;Ko et al, 2010;Ryu et al, 2018) (Hwang, 2020;Ko et al, 2010;Ryu et al, 2018).…”

“…그러나 같은 어휘 수준을 보인다 하더라도 인지 처리 과정에서 얼 마나 효율적으로 의미를 처리하느냐 역시 읽기이해에 영향을 미칠 수 있다 (Hwang, 2020;Ko et al, 2010;Ryu et al, 2018…”