Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T09:54:21.977Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS IN SENTENCE PROCESSING RESEARCH

A Methodological Review and User’s Guide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2014

Gregory D. Keating  and
Jill Jegerski
Gregory D. Keating*
Affiliation:
San Diego State University
Jill Jegerski
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gregory D. Keating, Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182-7722. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since the publication of Clahsen and Felser’s (2006) keynote article on grammatical processing in language learners, the online study of sentence comprehension in adult second language (L2) learners has quickly grown into a vibrant and prolific subfield of SLA. As online methods begin to establish a foothold in SLA research, it is important that researchers in our field design sentence-comprehension experiments that adhere to the fundamental principles of research design typical of sentence processing studies published in related subfields of the language sciences. In this article, we discuss and review widely accepted principles of research design for sentence processing studies that are not always followed in L2 sentence processing research. Particular emphasis is placed on the design of experimental items and distractors, the choice and design of the poststimulus distractor task, procedures for presenting stimuli to participants, and methods for trimming and analyzing online data, among others.

Type
State of the Art
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 1 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Brysbaert, M., & New, B. (2009). Moving beyond Kučera and Francis: A critical evaluation of current word frequency norms and the introduction of a new and improved word frequency measure for American English. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 977–990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, E., Gibson, E., & Wolf, F. (2005). Online syntactic storage costs in sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 52, 144–169.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006). Grammatical processing in language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 3–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, H. K. (1973). The language-as-fixed-effect fallacy: A critique of language statistics in psychological research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 12, 335–359.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Cunnings, I. (2012). An overview of mixed-effects statistical models for second language researchers. Second Language Research, 28, 369–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunnings, I., & Felser, C. (2013). The role of working memory in the processing of reflexives. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28, 188–219.Google Scholar
Cunnings, I., Patterson, C., & Felser, C. (2014). Variable binding and coreference in sentence comprehension: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language, 71, 39–56.Google Scholar
Dussias, P. E., & Piñar, P. (2010). Effects of reading span and plausibility in the reanalysis of wh-gaps by Chinese-English second language speakers. Second Language Research, 26, 443–472.Google Scholar
Ferreira, F., & Clifton, C. (1986). The independence of syntactic processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 25, 348–368.Google Scholar
Foote, R. (2011). Integrated knowledge of agreement in early and late English-Spanish bilinguals. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32, 187–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frenck-Mestre, C., & Pynte, J. (1997). Syntactic ambiguity resolution while reading in second and native languages. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 50A, 119–148.Google Scholar
Gass, S. (1989). How do learners resolve linguistic conflicts? In Gass, S. & Schacter, J. (Eds.), Linguistic perspectives on second language acquisition (pp. 183–199). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, E., Desmet, T., Grodner, D., Watson, D., & Ko, K. (2005). Reading relative clauses in English. Cognitive Linguistics, 16, 313–353.Google Scholar
Gibson, E., & Wu, H. H. I. (2013). Processing Chinese relative clauses in context. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28, 125–155.Google Scholar
Grosjean, F. (2008). Studying bilinguals. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Havik, E., Roberts, L., van Hout, R., Schreuder, R., & Haverkort, M. (2009). Processing subject-object ambiguities in the L2: A self-paced reading study with German L2 learners of Dutch. Language Learning, 59, 73–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopp, H. (2013). Individual differences in the second language processing of object-subject ambiguities. Applied Psycholinguistics. Advance online publication. doi:10.1017/S0142716413000180Google Scholar
Hsiao, F., & Gibson, E. (2003). Processing relative clauses in Chinese. Cognition, 90, 3–27.Google Scholar
Jackson, C. E., & Bobb, S. C. (2009). The processing and comprehension of wh-questions among second language speakers of German. Applied Psycholinguistics, 30, 603–636.Google Scholar
Jackson, C. E., & Dussias, P. E. (2009). Cross-linguistic differences and their impact on L2 sentence processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12, 65–82.Google Scholar
Jegerski, J. (2012, March). The processing of case markers in near-native Mexican Spanish. Poster presented at the 25th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, New York, NY.Google Scholar
Jegerski, J., & VanPatten, B. (Eds.). (2014). Research methods in second language psycholinguistics. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Juffs, A. (2004). Representation, processing, and working memory in a second language. Transactions of the Philological Society, 102, 199–225.Google Scholar
Juffs, A., & Harrington, M. (1995). Parsing effects in second language sentence processing: Subject and object asymmetries in wh-extraction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17, 483–516.Google Scholar
Juffs, A., & Harrington, M. (1996). Garden path sentences and error data in second language sentence processing. Language Learning, 46, 283–323.Google Scholar
Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension. Psychological Review, 87, 329–354.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keating, G. D. (2014). Eye-tracking with text. In Jegerski, J. & VanPatten, B. (Eds.), Research methods in second language psycholinguistics (pp. 69–92). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Leeser, M., Brandl, A., & Weissglass, C. (2011). Task effects in second language sentence processing research. In Trofimovich, P. & McDonough, K. (Eds.), Applying priming methods to L2 learning, teaching, and research: Insights from psycholinguistics (pp. 179–198). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LoCoco, V. (1987). Learner comprehension of oral and written sentences in German and Spanish: The importance of word order. In VanPatten, B., Dvorak, T. R., & Lee, J. F. (Eds.), Foreign language learning: A research perspective (pp. 119–129). New York, NY: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Morgan-Short, K., & Tanner, D. (2014). Event-related potentials (ERPs). In Jegerski, J. & VanPatten, B. (Eds.), Research methods in second language psycholinguistics (pp. 127–152). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Musumeci, D. (1989). The ability of second language learners to assign tense at the sentence level: A crosslinguistic study (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Osterhout, L., Allen, M. D., McLaughlin, J., & Inoue, K. (2002). Brain potentials elicited by prose-embedded linguistic anomalies. Memory and Cognition, 30, 1304–1312.Google Scholar
Rah, A., & Adone, D. (2010). Processing of the reduced relative clause versus main verb ambiguity in L2 learners at different proficiency levels. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32, 79–109.Google Scholar
Ratcliff, R. (1993). Methods for dealing with reaction time outliers. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 510–532.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rayner, K., & Duffy, S. A. (1986). Lexical complexity and fixation times in reading: Effects of word frequency, verb complexity, and lexical ambiguity. Memory and Cognition, 14, 191–201.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
R Core Team. (2013). R: A language and environment for statistical computing [Computer software]. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved fromhttp://www.R-project.orgGoogle Scholar
Roberts, L., & Felser, C. (2011). Plausibility and recovery from garden paths in second language sentence processing. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32, 299–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, L., Gullberg, M., & Indefrey, P. (2008). Online pronoun resolution in L2 discourse: L1 influence and general learner effects. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30, 333–357.Google Scholar
Siyanova-Chanturia, A., Conklin, K., & Schmitt, N. (2011). Adding more fuel to the fire: An eye-tracking study of idiom processing by native and non-native speakers. Second Language Research, 27, 251–272.Google Scholar
Tanner, D., Osterhout, L., & Herschensohn, J. (2009). Snapshots of grammaticalization: Differential electrophysiological responses to grammatical anomalies with increasing L2 exposure. In Chandlee, J., Franchini, M., Lord, S., & Rheiner, G.-M. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 528–539). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Tokowicz, N., & MacWhinney, B. (2005). Implicit and explicit measures of sensitivity to violations in second language acquisition in second language grammar: An event-related potential investigation. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 173–204.Google Scholar
Trueswell, J. C., Tanenhaus, M. K., & Garnsey, S. M. (1994). Semantic influences on parsing: Use of thematic role information in syntactic disambiguation. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 285–318.Google Scholar
VanPatten, B. (1984). Learner comprehension of clitic pronouns in Spanish: More evidence for a word order strategy. Hispanic Linguistics, 1, 57–67.Google Scholar
Wagers, M. W., Lau, E. F., & Phillips, C. (2009). Agreement attraction in comprehension: Representations and processes. Journal of Memory and Language, 61, 206–237.Google Scholar
Williams, J. N. (2006). Incremental interpretation in second language sentence processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 71–88.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. P., & Garnsey, S. M. (2009). Making simple sentences hard: Verb bias effects in simple direct object sentences. Journal of Memory and Language, 60, 368–392.Google Scholar