Ernesto Guerra

Research on second language (L2) learning using complexity measures has identified key developmental parameters with practical implications for language instruction and related fields. These parameters, however, might not necessarily apply to heritage language learners whose linguistic profile is different from that of L2 learners. This study addresses that gap by analyzing several complexity measures in Spanish heritage language samples. These measures include accuracy, and lexical and syntactic complexity in written texts produced by Spanish heritage language learners enrolled in college-level heritage language courses in the United States. The samples represent writers at four different ACTFL-based functional proficiency levels: Intermediate Mid, Intermediate High, Advanced Low, and Advanced Mid. The results showed a linear increment in accuracy as proficiency increases. Additionally, the study found changes in lexical and syntactic domains at the transition between Intermediate sublevels, whereas Advanced learners demonstrated greater sensitivity to changes in lexical measures. Taken together, the findings indicate that accuracy and text length are the strongest correlates of ACTFL-based functional proficiency sub-level in this group of HLLs.

Real-time sentence comprehension can pose a challenge for second-language (L2) speakers due to limited exposure to certain syntactic structures. While English allows dative alternation between double object (DO) and prepositional object (PO) constructions, Spanish only allows PO, which can render DOs more difficult to process than POs for Spanish–English bilinguals. However, semantic cues can also play a role: POs often feature inanimate themes, whereas DOs typically involve animate recipients following the verb. In a self-paced reading study, we examined the interplay of structural preferences and animacy in L2 dative sentence comprehension and how proficiency modulates these factors. Both first language (L1) and L2 participants exhibited longer reading times for DOs than POs, with a larger effect in L2 comprehenders. Notably, DOs with recipients plausibly acting as themes (e.g. ‘dog’) were read faster than DOs with nouns that could only act as recipients (e.g. ‘chef’), suggesting a temporary PO interpretation. Moreover, reliance on PO parsing strategies was stronger in less proficient than in more proficient L2 comprehenders. Together, our results align with experience-based models of L2 sentence processing.

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have difficulties during audiovisual (AV) speech integration, which can impact their ability to understand and produce speech. We examined whether children with DLD differed in relying on auditory or visual cues compared to typically developing (TD) children during the recognition of words presented with incongruent sound and articulation. The selective attention to the eyes and mouth of a speaker was also tested. We hypothesised that the DLD group would be less aware of visual and auditory speech cues and would tend to look less at the mouth and eyes of the talker's face compared to their TD peers. We recorded children's eye movements with an eye tracker as they looked into the face of a speaking interlocutor. During the task, the speaker's face was articulating a word matched simultaneously with a different word heard. Afterwards, children were asked to choose the word perceived among four drawings. The DLD group showed less accuracy and was more affected by the competitor's words in comparison to the TD group. Moreover, their selective attention was allocated significantly less to the mouth and partially to the eyes of the talker's face in comparison to the control group. AV speech cues are important in speech perception and children with DLD face challenges in processing speech and phonological representations. Interventions that focus on enhancing AV integration through visually salient cues and perceptual learning strategies may be beneficial for improving speech perception outcomes in children with DLD.

As high rates of sexual violence worldwide have increasingly been met with educational initiatives promoting sexual consent as a core preventive strategy, it becomes crucial to understand how consent is actually conceptualized in specific sociocultural contexts. This study examines how a group of adult women in Chile conceptualize sexual consent and how their understandings align with, expand or diverge from the definition promoted by the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS), a widely adopted international framework. Using a therapeutic writing methodology designed to support emotional safety and reflective depth, 34 women completed a collective writing workshop. For this paper, the main writing exercise was analyzed through thematic analysis. Results show three overarching themes: sexual consent as a self-directed and desire-aligned experience; the intricacies of giving in to sexual encounters as shaped by social expectations, emotional pressures, and relational considerations; and the tensions when differentiating consent from giving in, a distinction experienced as meaningful yet fluid and learned over time. Together, these findings reveal that our participants’ conceptualizations of sexual consent extend beyond normative international models, highlighting the need for attuned consent frameworks and educational approaches designed to prevent sexual violence.

This study investigates subject pronoun resolution in Catalan, a null-subject language, by examining linguistic and cognitive factors. We focus on gender, pronoun type (null and overt), and syntactic function (subject and object), as well as the order of mention (first and second) of antecedents. Using eye-tracking in the Visual World Paradigm (VWP), we analyze the interplay between these factors in both canonical (SVO) and non-canonical (OVS) sentence structures. Experiments 1, 2 and 3 (Study 1) explore how gender cues and pronoun type influence pronominal resolution in SVO sentences. Our findings reveal that gender facilitates early resolution but primarily affects first-mentioned antecedents. Null pronouns exhibit a strong preference for subject antecedents. However, overt pronouns, contrary to offline studies, show no strong preference for object antecedents and instead tend to favor first-mentioned subjects in ambiguous contexts. In unambiguous gender-marked cases, overt pronouns heavily rely on gender cues for reference resolution, but in ambiguous contexts, they display delayed resolution patterns. These results suggest that overt and null pronouns do not exhibit the expected division of labor proposed by the Position of Antecedent Hypothesis (PAH). Instead, null pronouns robustly refer to subject antecedents, while overt pronouns show more variability. Experiments 4 and 5 (Study 2) extend this investigation to OVS sentences, revealing that linear order exerts a stronger influence on pronoun resolution than grammatical subjecthood. Specifically, first-mentioned antecedents, rather than syntactic subjects, guide resolution in OVS structures, particularly for overt pronouns. This challenges previous findings that overt pronouns prefer object antecedents and highlights positional prominence as a crucial factor in pronoun resolution in Catalan. Overall, our results contribute to a broader understanding of pronoun processing across null-subject languages and underscore the importance of positional prominence in pronominal interpretation and suggest that, in non-canonical structures, order-of-mention can override subjecthood in guiding resolution.

As high rates of sexual violence worldwide have increasingly been met with educational initiatives promoting sexual consent as a core preventive strategy, it becomes crucial to understand how consent is actually conceptualized in specific sociocultural contexts. This study examines how adult women in Chile conceptualize sexual consent and how their understandings align with, expand or diverge from the definition promoted by the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS), one of the more wide-spread accounts. Using a therapeutic writing methodology designed to support emotional safety and reflective depth, 34 women completed a collective writing workshop. For this paper, the main writing exercise was analyzed through thematic analysis. Results show three overarching themes: sexual consent as a self-directed and desire-aligned experience; the intricacies of giving in to sexual encounters as shaped by social expectations, emotional pressures, and relational considerations; and the tensions when differentiating consent from giving in, a distinction experienced as meaningful yet fluid and learned over time. Together, these findings reveal that Chilean women’s conceptualizations of sexual consent extend beyond normative international models, highlighting the need for attuned consent frameworks and educational approaches designed to prevent sexual violence.

Background/Objectives: The “tip of the tongue” (TOT) and “feeling of knowing” (FOK) phenomena were cognitive experiences that notably affected word retrieval, particularly among older adults. The study aimed to investigate the influences of age of acquisition (AoA), vocabulary size, and verbal fluency on the frequency and nature of TOT and FOK occurrences as individuals aged. Methods: A behavioral experiment was conducted based on the two-step word retrieval framework established by Gollan and Brown in 2006. Early and late acquisition words were utilized to induce tip-of-the-tongue phenomena and the feeling of knowing. Additionally, vocabulary and verbal fluency tests were administered. Sixty monolingual older adults participated in the study (35 female, 25 male; mean age: 77.66 years). Mixed-effects linear regressions had been used to analyze the data. Results: The logistic regression analysis identified age of acquisition as the most significant predictor of TOT and FOK experiences (p < 0.0001), highlighting that earlier vocabulary acquisition enhanced retrieval efficiency. Notable interactions between vocabulary size and verbal fluency illustrated that increased lexical knowledge diminished reliance on age of acquisition for successful retrieval. Conclusions: The findings underscore the importance of early vocabulary acquisition as a protective factor against cognitive decline in older adults, emphasizing the necessity for interventions aimed at enhancing vocabulary and fluency. This study contributed valuable insights into the cognitive mechanisms underlying language retrieval and suggested that fostering rich linguistic environments throughout life could facilitate better cognitive health in aging populations.

This commentary critically complements a recent proposal that cognitive science can leverage Large Language Models (LLMs) to counter declining literacy. While recognizing the educational potential of LLMs, we highlight a significant trade‐off: their inherent design reduces users’ direct engagement with written text, undermining deeper literacy skills, especially in young learners. Acknowledging this tension is essential for developing pedagogically sound interventions. Cognitive scientists and educators must jointly anticipate which cognitive capacities may weaken, identify critical skills needed in emerging multimodal contexts, and collaboratively devise instructional strategies to preserve the cognitive benefits humans derive specifically from sustained interaction with written language.