Anuenue Kukona

Comprehenders must accommodate variable speech rates during real-world communication, including rapid speech that necessitates rapid processing. This research investigated whether non-native comprehenders predict (i.e., what will come next) even when hearing rapid speech. Native and non-native participants heard predictive and non-predictive sentences (e.g., “ride…” vs. “spot…”) at normal and fast speech rates (e.g., averaging ~3 vs. 9 syllables per second) while viewing visual arrays with predictable and unrelated objects (e.g., bike vs. kite). Across both groups and rates, participants made predictive mouse cursor movements to predictable objects (e.g., before hearing “bike”). In addition, these groups and rates differed quantitatively. These results suggest that prediction has a qualitatively similar function in native and non-native sentence processing, which supports speeded comprehension.

Do comprehenders predict (i.e., what will come next) when hearing rapid speech? Two mouse cursor tracking experiments investigated association-based predictions, which may be suited to speeded processing. Participants heard predictive sentences (e.g., “What the pilot will fly, which is shown here, is the . . .”) while viewing visual arrays with predictable objects (e.g., helicopter) and unpredictable but verb-associated objects (e.g., kite) or unrelated objects (e.g., book). Experiment 1 compared predictive and nonpredictive (e.g., “What everyone will discuss, which is shown here, is the . . .”) sentences at a normal speech rate, and Experiment 2 compared predictive sentences at a normal and fast speech rate (e.g., averaging ~4 and 9 syllables per second). In addition to making mouse cursor movements to predictable objects before hearing predictable words (e.g., “helicopter”), participants’ mouse cursor movements at both speech rates were attracted to unpredictable but verb-associated objects, providing evidence of association-based prediction. These results suggest that when hearing rapid speech, associations support but do not dominate comprehenders’ predictions.

Intuition often guides our thinking effectively, but it can also lead to consequential reasoning errors, underpinning poor decisions and biased judgments. Little is known about how people globally self-correct such intuitive reasoning errors and what enhances their correction. Defying prevailing models of reasoning, recent research suggests that people spontaneously correct only a few errors during deliberation; however, enhancing error monitoring and motivating further effort should increase error correction. Here, we study whether these mechanisms apply to reasoning across individualistic and collectivistic cultures (expected N = 33,000 participants from 67 regions). Participants will solve problems that elicit incorrect intuitions twice: first intuitively and then reflectively, allowing them to correct initial errors, in a 2 (feedback: absent vs present) × 2 (answer justification: absent vs present) between-participants design. The study will shed more light on the nature, generalisability, and promotion of corrective behaviour, crucial for understanding and improving reasoning worldwide.

Two mouse cursor tracking experiments investigated lexical prediction. Participants heard predictive sentences (e.g., “What the librarian will read, which is shown here, is the…”) and viewed visual arrays with predictable targets (e.g., book) and phonological competitors (e.g., bull) or unrelated distractors (e.g., goat). Participants tasked with clicking on the (i.e., target) object referred to in sentences (Experiment 1), or with doing so interleaved with a cloze procedure (e.g., completing “What the librarian will read is this.”; Experiment 2), made predictive mouse cursor movements to targets. However, predictive attraction to phonological competitors was not observed. Implications for theories of predictive sentence processing are discussed.

Recent psycholinguistic findings raise fundamental questions about comprehenders' ability to rationally adapt their predictions during sentence processing. Two mouse cursor tracking experiments (each N = 85) assessed this adaptivity by manipulating the reliability of verb-based semantic cues. In Experiment 1, predictive mouse cursor movements to targets (e.g., bike) versus distractors (e.g., kite) were measured while participants heard equal proportions of nonpredictive (e.g., "spot … the bike"), predictive (e.g., "ride … the bike"), and antipredictive (e.g., "fly … the bike") sentences. In Experiment 2, participants heard equal proportions of nonpredictive and antipredictive sentences. Participants were observed to flexibly adapt their predictions, such that they disengaged prediction in Experiment 1 when verb-based cues were unreliable and as likely to be disconfirmed as confirmed, while they generated adapted predictions in Experiment 2 when verb-based cues were reliably disconfirmed. However, links to individual differences in cognitive control were not observed. These results are interpreted as supporting rational theoretical approaches. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Four online mouse cursor tracking experiments (totalN= 208) examined the activation of phonological representations by linguistic and nonlinguistic auditory stimuli. Participants hearing spoken words (e.g., “bell”) produced less direct mouse cursor trajectories toward corresponding pictures or text when visual arrays also included phonologically related competitors (e.g., belt) as compared with unrelated distractors (e.g., hose), but no such phonological competition was observed during environmental sounds (e.g., the ring of a bell). While important similarities have been observed between spoken words and environmental sounds, these experiments provide novel mouse cursor evidence that environmental sounds directly activate conceptual knowledge without needing to engage linguistic knowledge, contrasting with spoken words. Implications for theories of conceptual knowledge are discussed.

Two experiments investigated individual differences in the integration of visual and linguistic constraints during syntactic ambiguity resolution. Skilled adult comprehenders heard sentences like “Put the kiwi on the rectangle on the circle”, in which “on the rectangle … ” could temporarily reflect either the destination of “put” or a modifier of “kiwi”, while viewing visual arrays with either 1 kiwi (e.g. on a rectangle) or 2 kiwis (e.g. on a rectangle vs. triangle). While the noun “kiwi” provided sufficient information to distinguish the object of interest in the 1 referent context, modification was necessitated by the 2 referent context. Garden path eye (Experiment 1) and mouse (Experiment 2) movements to the incorrect (e.g. rectangle) destination were reduced in 2 vs 1 referent contexts, conceptually replicating prior findings, and these effects were weaker for participants with less vs. more vocabulary knowledge. Implications for models of sentence processing are discussed.

Three visual world experiments investigated the activation of linguistic knowledge during the processing of nonlinguistic auditory stimuli. In Experiment 1, participants heard spoken words such as "car" or environmental sounds such as a sound produced by a car while viewing visual arrays with objects such as a car (target), card (phonologically related competitor), and box (unrelated distractor). Interleaved throughout, participants heard both spoken words and environmental sounds. In Experiments 2 and 3, to assess contextual constraints on processing, participants only heard environmental sounds while viewing similar visual arrays (targets were included in the former but not the latter). When participants heard environmental sounds interleaved among spoken words (Experiment 1), they fixated competitors significantly more than distractors during both types of auditory stimuli, suggesting that both engage linguistic systems and representations; however, when participants only heard environmental sounds (Experiments 2 and 3), phonological competition was not observed. These results suggest that the activation of linguistic knowledge by environmental sounds is context dependent rather than automatic, differing from spoken words. Implications for theories addressing the mapping of auditory stimuli onto conceptual knowledge are discussed. Public Significance Statement Environmental sounds are nonlinguistic sounds that are produced by everyday entities and events, such as the sounds produced by planes, trains, and automobiles. Focusing on the retrieval of linguistic information, this study highlights both similarities and differences between the processing of language and environmental sounds.

To become fluent in a second language, learners need to acquire a large vocabulary. However, the cognitive and affective mechanisms that support word learning, particularly among second language learners, are only beginning to be understood. Prior research has focused on intentional learning and small artificial lexicons. In the current study investigating the sources of individual variability in word learning and their underlying mechanisms, participants intentionally and incidentally learned a large vocabulary of Welsh words (i.e., emulating word learning in the wild) and completed a large battery of cognitive and affective measures. The results showed that, for both learning conditions, native language knowledge, auditory/phonological abilities and orthographic sensitivity all made unique contributions to word learning. Importantly, short-term/working memory played a significantly larger role in intentional learning. We discuss these results in the context of the mechanisms that support both native and non-native language learning.