The effect of individual emotional state on (morpho)syntactic processing was investigated using
event-related potential (ERP). The participants were randomly assigned to the happy-, sad-, or
neutral-mood group (with ten participants in each). In the mood induction session, the happy-
and sad-mood groups watched happy and sad movie clips, respectively, for approximately five
minutes, and the neutral-mood group was not presented with any clips. In the following EEG
recording session, they were presented emotionally neutral sentences, which included (a)
syntactically well-formed control sentences (e.g., sanma-ga kogeru), (b) intransitive
ungrammatical sentences (e.g., sanma-o kogeru), and (c) transitive ungrammatical sentences
(e.g., sanma-ga kogasu).
The results of the ERP experiment showed a mood effect on P600 amplitudes, but not on LAN
amplitudes. In 300–500 ms, a LAN effect appeared in every mood condition. In the P600
time-window, the participants showed a P600 effect for the ungrammatical sentences, such as in
(b) and (c), regardless of mood in the long SOA condition. In the short SOA condition, on the
other hand, the intransitive ungrammatical sentence in (b) elicited a P600 effect. However, the
transitive ungrammatical sentence in (c) elicited a P600 effect at the lateral array only in the
neutral mood, and at the temporal array only in the sad mood. These results demonstrated that
the emotional state of participants have an impact on syntactic processing indexed by P600, by
enhancing and decreasing effortful integration processes.
Minemi, Itsuki (2016) Processing of filler-gap dependencies by Japanese learners of English
言語研究に掲載
link
日本言語学会第152回大会で発表(日本言語学会大会発表賞 受賞)
link要旨
The present study investigated how Japanese learners of English with upper-intermediate
proficiency processed English filler-gap dependencies by conducting two self-paced reading
experiments. Experiment 1 manipulated plausibility between the filler and a verb in order to
examine whether they could construct filler-gap dependency incrementally. A plausibility
mismatch effect was observed at the verb position, which indicates that Japanese learners of
English could posit an object gap immediately after encountering the verb. Experiment 2
manipulated verb transitivity to explore whether they can process English filler-gap
dependencies predictively. The result of Experiment 2 did not show a transitivity mismatch
effect, suggesting that Japanese learners could not predict the object gap before the verb
appears during the processing of English filler-gap dependencies. Taken together, learners whose
first language does not share many linguistic characteristics with the second language can
incrementally process filler-gap dependencies, but not predictively.
Tsumura, Saki (2016) Processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences by Japanese learners of English
日本言語学会第152回大会で発表
link要旨
This study investigated the processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences by Japanese learners
of English using a word-by-word, noncumulative moving window self-paced reading paradigm.
Experiment 1 examined whether Japanese learners of English showed a garden-path effect. In
Experiments 2 and 3, semantic plausibility and verb transitivity were manipulated to examine
whether Japanese learners of English could avoid garden-path effects, using plausibility or
subcategorization information during the ambiguity resolution. The results of the reading
experiments indicate that
Japanese upper intermediate leaners of English process second language sentences incrementally,
and this trend increases with their proficiencies. The results also suggest that Japanese
learners of English cannot use plausibility and subcategorization information for ambiguity
resolution in real-time
processing. However, the degree of disruption was smaller and the recovery from the misanalysis
came sooner when plausibility or subcategorization information were supported by syntactic
information. The Japanese upper intermediate learners’ ability to integrate different kinds of
information in real-time processing was less effective than native English speakers, even though
Japanese learners could take an alternative analysis immediately when the reanalysis was
facilitated by syntactic information.