Language Comprehension

The book presents the results of empirical research on text comprehension in a research sample of 3rd graders (8- to 9-year-olds). The research was carried out thanks to the financial support of the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic (project 1/0061/21). In the research, a qualitative methodology with the supporting function of quantitative data was applied. We focused on three text genres, namely expository, narrative, and multimodal. Genres were distinguished by a basic text structure or a combination of semiotic modes; the common feature was their non-fiction character and the dominance of the referential function. For each genre, we investigated two perceptual modalities, namely reading and listening to the text. Due to the availability of participants, the scope of the research sample differed for each text genre and ranged from 26 to 33 participants per genre (approx. 92 participants). For the research, we constructed six research instruments, which were administered individually with each participant within the time span of 30 – 40 minutes. Each participant was exposed to one text genre and listening preceded reading the text with an interval of at least one week. The process of administration was documented using audio and graphic recordings. The transcribed material was subjected to content analysis and subsequently we interpreted the obtained data.

Two striking contrasts currently exist in the sentence processing literature. First, whereas adult readers rely heavily on lexical information in the generation of syntactic alternatives, adult listeners in world-situated eye-gaze studies appear to allow referential evidence to override strong countervailing lexical biases . Second, in contrast to adults, children in similar listening studies fail to use this referential information and appear to rely exclusively on verb biases or perhaps syntactically based parsing principles . We explore these contrasts by fully crossing verb bias and referential manipulations in a study using the eye-gaze listening technique with adults (Experiment 1) and Wve-year-olds (Experiment 2). Results indicate that adults combine lexical and referential information to determine syntactic choice. Children rely ଝ A portion of this work was presented in proceedings to the 23rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. The ideas in this paper owe much to our conversations with Lila Gleitman and to the comments of the many audiences who heard preliminary reports of this research. We thank Kirsten Thorpe for her assistance with testing, coding, and participant recruitment and Sylvia Yuan for her assistance in data analysis. We also gratefully acknowledge Tracy Dardick who carried out the norming studies and Jared Novick and David January who assisted in comparisons between head-mounted eye-tracking and our procedure.

The problem of placing n points on the circumference of a circle so as to maximize the minimum distance between any two points is a classical optimization problem in geometry. While solutions for n = 3, 4, 6 are well-established and proven, the case n = 5-that the regular pentagon is optimal-has long been considered "obvious," yet a simple, accessible formal proof is scarce in the mathematical literature. In this paper, we provide an elementary geometric proof using Jensen's Inequality and the chord formula. We show that for five points on a circle, the regular pentagon simultaneously maximizes the perimeter, area, and minimum pairwise distance. The proof is concise and accessible to high school students.

Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (1991) depicted cognitive science as a polar chart with five disciplines on the angular axis and three approaches-cognitivism, emergence, and enactivism-on the radial axis. The absolute center of that chart, the point equidistant from all rings and legible from all disciplines, was left empty. Varela's implicit argument was that no single approach could honestly occupy it without collapsing the distinctions the chart was designed to preserve. This paper argues that the center can be occupied, but only by a meta-position: a formal framework capable of expressing all three radial approaches in a single notation, without privileging any. That framework is the General Theory of MILP Pliability. A mixed-integer linear program is a triple (X, C, f) of decision variables, linear constraints, and an objective function. This paper demonstrates that the same triple, unchanged, admits a cognitivist reading (variables as representations, constraints as rules, objective as goal), an emergentist reading (solver dynamics as self-organization), and an enactivist reading (constraints as structural coupling to the world). The framework is then shown to be operative across all five angular disciplines. Falsifiers are stated explicitly. The paper closes by nominating Behavioral and Brain Sciences as the natural venue, whose open-commentary architecture is the only standard scholarly mechanism capable of testing simultaneous legibility across all five readerships.

In this study we examined asymmetric semantic activation patterns as people listened to conversations and narratives that promoted causal inferences. Based on the hypothesis that understanding the unique features of conversational input may benefit from or require a modified pattern of conceptual activation during conversation, we compared semantic priming in both hemispheres for inferences embedded in conversations and in narratives. Participants named inference-related target words or unrelated words presented to the left visual field-right hemisphere (lvf-RH) or to the right visual field-left hemisphere (rvf-LH) at critical coherence points that required an inference in order to correctly understand an utterance in the context of the conversation or narrative. Fifty-seven undergraduates listened to 36 conversations or narratives and were tested at 100 target inference points. During narrative comprehension, inference-related priming was reliable and equally strong in both hemispheres. In contrast, during conversation comprehension, inference-related priming was only reliable for target words presented to lvf-RH. This work demonstrates that priming for inference-related concepts can be measured with input in conversational form and suggests the language processing style of the RH is advantageous for comprehending conversation.

Eye‐movement patterns during reading are consistent with proposition‐by‐proposition models of speech comprehension. (1) Fixation times are least affected by word length at ends of clauses: this confirms the theory based on the study of speech comprehension that, at such points, attention is directed inward to text integration. (2) Fixation time for words at the end of clauses is longer for canonical sequences which conform to the pattern, “N‐V‐N = actor‐action‐object”; this confirms the view that complete semantic integration of such sequences is routinely delayed until their completion. A two‐variable model based on principles of exhaustive visual search and speech comprehension accounts for 80% of the fixation durations in a sample paragraph from Just and Carpenter (1980) and Thibodeou, Just ond Carpenter (1982). This comprehension‐based model compares favorably with their models constructed within a production‐system framework. This result clarifies the relationship between readi...

We test whether structural priming is syntactically constrained in first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers. In a written production task, 68 L1 English speakers and 144 L2 English learners described transfer-of-possession events shown in pictures by using double-object (DO) datives ('The artist sells the sailor the knife') or prepositional-object (PO) datives ('The artist sells the knife to the sailor'). The preceding prime sentences were either DO or PO datives, syntactically related locatives ('The boy carries the cake to the soldier') or syntactically unrelated infinitivals ('The monk brings the cake to share'). Additionally, verbs between prime and target sentences either overlapped or were different. L1 speakers showed structural priming of datives from datives and locatives, yet not from infinitivals. Higher-proficiency L2 learners showed priming only within datives; yet, lower-proficiency learners demonstrated dative priming from datives, locatives and infinitivals. Lexical overlap in verbs contributed to priming within datives, yet not from infinitivals to datives. The results show that structural priming in L1 speakers and in higher-proficiency L2 learners does not cross syntactic boundaries. In L2 development, lexical surface overlap ('to')

This article examines how five typologically related but distinct Indo-European languages-Bulgarian (South Slavic), English (Germanic), Italian (Romance), Serbian (South Slavic), and Croatian (South Slavic)-encode three fundamental concepts in pedagogical metalanguage: the distinction between individual teaching methods, systematic pedagogical Abstract (Italian Translation) Questo articolo esamina come cinque lingue indoeuropee tipologicamente correlate ma distinte-bulgaro (slavo meridionale), inglese (germanico), italiano (romanzo), serbo (slavo meridionale) e croato (slavo meridionale)-codificano tre concetti fondamentali nel metalinguaggio pedagogico: la distinzione tra metodi didattici individuali, la pratica pedagogica sistematica (didattica), e lo studio teorico degli approcci didattici (metodologia). Il bulgaro mantiene una chiara distinzione lessicale tripartita attraverso метод (metodo-tecnica o approccio specifico), методика (metodica/didattica-pratica pedagogica sistematica di una disciplina), e методология (metodologia-studio teorico dei metodi). L'inglese collassa questo spazio semantico in principalmente due termini-method e methodology-con didactics che occupa una posizione marginale e spesso fraintesa nel discorso pedagogico. L'italiano impiega metodo, metodologia, e i termini duali didattica/metodica, creando una parziale sovrapposizione e competizione semantica tra questi ultimi due. Il serbo e il croato, pur condividendo un patrimonio linguistico stretto con il bulgaro, mostrano comunque variazioni interessanti nel funzionamento di методика/metodika attraverso diversi contesti educativi.

El presente trabajo se propone analizar la relación entre salud mental y autoridad en el contexto de talleres de arte para pacientes psiquiátricos externados, en el marco del UBACyT P424, "Autoridad, ley simbólica y subjetivación". Se despliegan algunos interrogantes surgidos a partir de entrevistas con un equipo de salud mental de un hospital público provincial que orienta sus esfuerzos hacia el restablecimiento del lazo social a través del arte y microemprendimientos. En esta oportunidad, analizaremos el lugar de la autoridad a través de una escena vivida por las autoras y otras relatadas por los entrevistados, que conducen a considerar la situación de enseñanza como una "práctica entre varios" . Asimismo, la pensaremos como una experiencia en tanto da cuenta de un acontecer que tiene potencial transformador (LARROSA, 1996). Luego, utilizando el concepto de escena como unidad de análisis, se estudiará el sostenimiento de un vínculo pedagógico distinto al propio del dispositivo escolar tradicional que nos invita a pensar alternativas tendientes a alojar al alumno como un igual, pero con otra posición (RANCIÈRE, 2003).

Traditionally, literature on language comprehension has viewed the organization of words in the human brain based on theories that view words as being represented as abstract symbols in an interconnected network (Fodor, 1975; Collins & Loftus, 1975; Landauer & Dumais, 1997; Burgess & Lund, 1997). However, more recently, an alternate view known as embodied theory has begun garnering support among cognitive psychologists. One basic tenet of this theory pertinent to the present review is that emotion is experienced in the body, thereby influencing cognitive processes including language comprehension (Niedenthal, 2007). To test embodied theory, researchers have used evidence from Kutas and Hillyard’s (1980) ground-breaking event-related potential (ERP) experiment, which showed a particular component known as the N400 is sensitive to semantic incongruities. In adapting this research to study how language affects emotion, it was repeatedly found that N400 also responds to emotion, which s...

Cognitive functions are organized in distributed, overlapping, and interacting brain networks. Investigation of those large-scale brain networks is a major task in neuroimaging research. Here, we introduce a novel combination of functional and anatomical connectivity to study the network topology subserving a cognitive function of interest. (i) In a given network, direct interactions between network nodes are identified by analyzing functional MRI time series with the multivariate method of directed partial correlation (dPC). This method provides important improvements over shortcomings that are typical for ordinary (partial) correlation techniques. (ii) For directly interacting pairs of nodes, a regionto-region probabilistic fiber tracking on diffusion tensor imaging data is performed to identify the most probable anatomical white matter fiber tracts mediating the functional interactions. This combined approach is applied to the language domain to investigate the network topology of two levels of auditory comprehension: lower-level speech perception (i.e., phonological processing) and higher-level speech recognition (i.e., semantic processing). For both processing levels, dPC analyses revealed the functional network topology and identified central network nodes by the number of direct interactions with other nodes. Tractography showed that these interactions are mediated by distinct ventral (via the extreme capsule) and dorsal (via the arcuate/superior longitudinal fascicle fiber system) long-and short-distance association tracts as well as commissural fibers. Our findings demonstrate how both processing routines are segregated in the brain on a large-scale network level. Combining dPC with probabilistic tractography is a promising approach to unveil how cognitive functions emerge through interaction of functionally interacting and anatomically interconnected brain regions.

Understanding whether conceptual representation during language comprehension and production relies on perceptual simulation remains a central debate in cognitive science. Grounded cognition theories propose that linguistic meaning is constructed through modality‑specific simulations, whereas symbolic accounts argue for amodal, language‑specific processing. This study examined whether perceptual simulations systematically drive conceptual representation by relating spontaneous non‑visual eye movements to the processing of motion events. Forty‑two participants completed two blank‑screen eye‑tracking experiments: a comprehension task using environmental sounds and spoken event descriptions, and a production task eliciting verbal descriptions of environmental sounds. Critical stimuli depicted horizontal or vertical motion events, allowing tests of whether gaze dynamics reflect the spatial properties of simulated motion. Across both experiments, participants showed greater overall gaze dispersion when processing motion events compared to non‑motion controls, suggesting that perceptual simulation of spatial event structure contributed to meaning construction in both comprehension and production. However, axis‑specific effects predicted by strong simulation accounts did not emerge. Linguistic processing demands modulated oculomotor behavior: verbal comprehension and speech‑planning phases elicited higher saccade rates and reduced travel distance, consistent with a shift of cognitive resources toward linguistic representations at the expense of simulation. Individual differences in visual imagery ability further shaped gaze behavior, indicating variability in reliance on perceptual simulation. These findings challenge claims that sensorimotor activation is automatic or necessary for conceptual processing, while demonstrating that perceptual simulation remains a flexible, context‑dependent resource. The study advances methodological approaches to non‑visual gaze analysis and refines theoretical accounts of how linguistic and non‑linguistic representations interact during meaning construction.

The cortical regions of the brain traditionally associated with the comprehension of language are Wernicke's area and Broca's area. However, recent evidence suggests that other brain regions might also be involved in this complex process. This paper describes the opportunity to evaluate a large number of brain-injured patients to determine which lesioned brain areas might affect language comprehension. Sixty-four chronic left hemisphere stroke patients were evaluated on 11 subtests of the Curtiss-Yamada Comprehensive Language Evaluation -Receptive (CYCLE-R; Curtiss, S., & Yamada, J. (1988). Curtiss -Yamada Comprehensive Language Evaluation. Unpublished test, UCLA). Eight right hemisphere stroke patients and 15 neurologically normal older controls also participated. Patients were required to select a single line drawing from an array of three or four choices that best depicted the content of an auditorily-presented sentence. Patients' lesions obtained from structural neuroimaging were reconstructed onto templates and entered into a voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM;

Computational models of primate vision took a major advance with David Marr's tripartite separation of the vision enterprise into the problem formulation, algorithm and neural implementation, however many subsequent parallel developments in robotics and modeling greatly refined the algorithm descriptions into very distinct levels that complement each other. This review traces the time course of these developments and shows how the current perspective evolved to have its own internal hierarchical organization.

Objective-The principal goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between language and literacy (i.e., reading and writing) skills in pediatric cochlear implant users. A peripheral objective was to identify the children's skills that were in need of remediation and subsequently to provide suggestions for remedial programming. It was predicted that the robust language skills often associated with children who have cochlear implant experience would facilitate the development of literacy skills. It was further proposed that the language and literacy skills of pediatric cochlear implant users would approximate the language and literacy skills of children with normal hearing. Design-Sixteen pediatric cochlear implant users' language and literacy skills were evaluated and then compared with a reference group of 16 age-matched, normal-hearing children. All 32 participants were educated in mainstream classes within the public school system in the Midwest. The "Sentence Formulation" and "Concepts and Directions" subtests of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-3 test were used to evaluate receptive and expressive language skills. Reading comprehension was evaluated with the "Paragraph Comprehension" subtest of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test. Performance measures for the writing analyses included productivity, complexity and grammaticality measures. Results-Children with cochlear implants performed within 1 SD of the normal-hearing, agematched children on measures of language comprehension, reading comprehension and writing accuracy. However, the children with cochlear implants performed significantly poorer than the children with normal hearing on the expressive "Sentence Formulation" subtest. The cochlear implant users also produced fewer words on the written narrative task than did the normal-hearing children, although there was not a significant difference between groups with respect to total words per clause. Furthermore there was a strong correlation between language performance and reading performance, as well as language performance and total words produced on the written performance measure for the children using cochlear implants. The results of this study suggest that the language skills of pediatric cochlear implant users are related to and correlated with the development of literacy skills within these children. Consequently, the performance of the cochlear implant users, on various language and literacy measures, compared favorably to an age-matched group of children with normal hearing. There were significant differences in the ability of the cochlear implant users to correctly utilize grammatical structures such as conjunctions and correct verb forms when they were required to formulate written and oral sentences. Given this information, it would be appropriate for their

The English curriculum is crucial because it is through language that images of ethnic identity are carried; and it is through images that stereo-types are created, popularized and entrenched. Secondly, since English is learnt as a second language in Kenya, its teaching and use in official and informal situations may cause offence even when the users never meant to annoy or offend. This necessitates that efforts are made and mechanisms established to standardize the use of the English language as a Kenyan legal code of official business and for acculturation of children through the education system and at home. Two objectives of primary education were found to touch on the mandate of CIe. These are to: 1. Develop aesthetic values and appreciate own and other people's cultures; and 2. Instill respect and love for own country and the need for harmonious co-existence. These two objectives are highly critical in the achievement of requisite attitudes envisaged in the NCI Act and the Constitutional provisions on non-discrimination and equality of persons and groups. However, it is important to note that objectives in any curriculum are nly as good as the materials used for instruction and the teaching techniques employed by instructors. For example, a good story illustrating how mediation between two warring clans or families brings peace may escape children's attention if the teacher does not make the lesson 'live' and participatory to bring out the power of negotiation through careful choice of language and discourse techniques. This is where listening skills and respect for others' opinions and needs play an important role in inter-personal and inter-cultural communication. To a large extent, the content presented by the primary education syllabus appears to accommodate some of the core areas of concern of the 1 CIC e.g. gender issues, human rights, child's rights, moral values and social responsibility. Review of the Secondary School English Syllabus (2002)

Recent research suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) tools allow EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners to exert greater control over their language-learning process. Furthermore, these tools enhance their language skills by providing them with elements often absent in traditional classroom settings, such as autonomy and individual pace of learning. Specifically, AI-based tools, such AI chatbots, have the potential to facilitate learning and streamline tasks for both students and instructors in language-learning contexts. These digital companions (i.e., chatbots) can be methodically crafted and equipped with the required essential materials to support students in practising language skills independently, regardless of time or location. The current study presents an experiment conducted with undergraduate students at a university in Saudi Arabia to assess the effectiveness of a customised AI chatbot, WritePro (GPT-4), in improving their writing skills. Learners in the experimental group were instructed to use WritePro to navigate through their writing stages, focusing their queries on four key components: content and organisation, grammar mechanics, vocabulary usage, and sentence structure. The findings showed that WritePro serves as an effective tool for EFL learners to overcome several challenges in developing writing competencies. Therefore, the significance of these findings lies in the potential of AI tools to enable EFL instructors to effectively integrate chatbots into classroom instruction, supporting the development of students' writing skills. Furthermore, these findings can be used as a basis for advocacy with university policymakers regarding the use of AI chatbots in language classrooms.

A strongly embodied view of language holds that, to understand a word, you must simulate associated sensory input (e.g. simulate perception of brightness to understand 'lamp'), and prepare associated actions (e.g. prepare finger movements to understand 'typing'). To test this, we measured pupillary responses to single words that conveyed a sense of brightness (e.g. 'day') or darkness (e.g. 'night'), or were luminance-neutral (e.g. 'house'). Crucially, we found that the pupil was largest for darkness-conveying words, intermediate for neutral words, and smallest for brightness-conveying words; however, this semantic pupillary response peaked long after participants had already understood and responded to the words. These findings suggest that word comprehension activates sensory representations, and even triggers physiological (pupillary) responses, but that this occurs too late to be a necessary part of the comprehension process itself. Instead...

Semantic underspecification occurs when linguistic expressions carry partial meaning, requiring context for full understanding. It poses key challenges across philosophy, cognitive science, and NLP. This review identifies five developmental stages: (1) Classical theories by Frege, Russell, and Davidson created truth-conditional frameworks but encountered difficulties with indexical and belief contexts due to assumptions of full specification; (2) Formal models like QLF, MRS, and Hole Semantics introduced computational underspecification to handle structural ambiguities such as quantifier scope; (3) Cognitive studies show humans use underspecification strategically for efficiency, relying on pragmatic inference and semantic memory; (4) Hybrid neuro-symbolic models like UMR and Glue Semantics combined structural ambiguity resolution with neural inference but lacked uncertainty modeling; (5) Modern NLP research highlights gaps: LLMs can detect underspecification but often overcommit to deterministic interpretations, and multimodal systems do not effectively utilize context. Cross-linguistic entropy models suggest grammatical underspecification as a strategy for cognitive efficiency. To bridge human semantic flexibility enabled by incremental processing and pragmatic co-construction-with computational systems, we propose integrated neuro-symbolic architectures incorporating explicit uncertainty modeling, multimodal grounding, and entropy-aware design. This approach paves the way for AI to achieve human-like language understanding.

Interactive processing is a central feature of human cognition, whereby top-down and bottom-up pathways pass information between different levels of representation. In this study, we investigated how these interactive mechanisms develop by asking whether interactive processing arises early in life or emerges later, with experience or as the brain matures. In a visual world eye-tracking study, we tested whether four and five year-old children show evidence of top-down interactivity during language comprehension. We found that young children, like adults, can use top-down cues from the sentence context to constrain processing of the bottom-up language input during spoken word recognition, allowing them to avoid activating word candidates that initially match the input but are semantically incongruent with the context. Furthermore, we found that the children used top-down cues to pre-activate the phonological representations of predictable words before they appeared in the input. These findings illustrate that the pathways necessary for interactive processing are robust and active by early childhood, suggesting that the mechanisms of interactive processing are intrinsic and fundamental properties of the mind's architecture.

In comparison with the large number of population they have, the deaf community have not been given due attention in terms of education in Ethiopia. This was the main problem that initiated the researcher to conduct research on this area. The general objective of this study is to assess the educational accessibility of Ethiopian Sign Language for the deaf community. The research is a qualitative one and it was based on interviews and discussions made through interpreters’ assistance. Deaf students, deaf students’ teachers and Zone Educational Bureaus Officers were study participants. The study is important in indicating the relevancy needed for educating people who are deaf and with hard hearing. The findings of the study indicate that deaf education in Ethiopia is characterized by absence of enough schools for the deaf and with information gap on the access of deaf education.   Key words: Sign language, Ethiopian sign language, sign language education, sign dialect...

How do speakers represent and process syntactic information in their second and third language? We investigated this question with cross-linguistic syntactic priming of passives from Spanish (L3) to English (L2). We found that cross-linguistic structural priming occurs between two non-native languages in intermediate to advanced speakers of English as an L2 and Spanish as an L3. We take these results to show that multilingual speakers have one integrated shared abstract representation of passives. The findings are compatible with the extension of the bilingual shared-syntax model to multilingual syntactic processing.

This study investigates how L1-Japanese learners of English pragmatically enrich quantifiers in the L2, focusing on the role of L1 semantics, lexical competition, and contextual informativeness. Our central aim was to chart cross-linguistic and interlanguage differences in the underlying quantifier systems of English and Japanese, and to assess how these shape the lower and upper semantic thresholds of scalar terms like some. Using the gumball paradigm developed within a Constraint-Based framework, we elicited gradient naturalness judgments across two experiments to map how some is distributed over fine-grained numerosity continua. In unpressured contexts with limited competitors (Experiment 1), L2 learners patterned closely with native English speakers in their interpretations of some, suggesting emerging target-like intuitions. However, when the lexical alternatives a few and most were introduced alongside some (Experiment 2), systematic L1-based transfer effects emerged: learners interpreted a few and most in line with their Japanese counterparts (sukoshi, hotondo), displaying narrower or delayed acceptability ranges. These transfer patterns disrupted scalar coordination, resulting in an expanded acceptability window for some and a unique scalar reasoning profile. Together, the results map how cross-linguistic differences in quantifier systems affect L2 learners’ scalar representations and highlight the need for models of inference development to incorporate language-specific constraints on quantifier meaning alongside consideration of pragmatic mechanisms.