Arai et al. (2007) showed that structural priming in the comprehension of English dative sentences only occurred when the verb was repeated between prime and target, suggesting a lexically-dependent mechanism of structure prediction. However, a recent study in Mandarin comprehension found abstract (verb-independent) structural priming and such…

The ability to read in a second language (L2) for academic purposes is essential for higher education students. Dutch colleges increasingly use materials in English or teach in English. This can be challenging for L2 readers, especially students entering higher education from vocational studies, who may have less experience with L2 academic…

Previous research showed an emerging appreciation of literary narratives on second reading, whereas such effects fail to occur for the same narratives depleted of literary features. This might suggest that appreciation is associated with readers' acknowledgment of the purposefulness of literary devices on rereading. It may also be that the…

To create a coherent and correct mental representation of a text, readers must validate incoming information; they must monitor information for consistency with the preceding text and their background knowledge. The current study aims to contrast text- and knowledge-based monitoring to investigate their unique influences on processing and whether…

In 3 ERP experiments, we investigated how experienced L2 speakers process natural and correct syntactic input that deviates from their own, sometimes incorrect, syntactic representations. Our previous study (Lemhöfer, Schriefers, & Indefrey, 2014) had shown that L2 speakers do engage in native-like syntactic processing of gender agreement but…

The results of a self-paced reading study with advanced German, Dutch and French second language (L2) learners of English showed that their online comprehension of early closure (EC) sentences which are initially misanalysed by native English speakers (e.g. "While John hunted the frightened rabbit escaped") was affected by whether or…

Lexical access is a core component of word processing. In order to produce or comprehend a word, language users must access word forms in their mental lexicon. However, despite its involvement in both tasks, previous research has often studied lexical access in either production or comprehension alone. Therefore, it is unknown to which extent…

Embodied theories of language comprehension propose that readers construct a mental simulation of described objects that contains perceptual characteristics of their real-world referents. The present study is the first to investigate directly whether implied object size is mentally simulated during sentence comprehension and to study the potential…

The present study investigated whether the recognition of spoken words is influenced by how predictable they are given their syntactic context and whether listeners assign more weight to syntactic predictability when acoustic-phonetic information is less reliable. Syntactic predictability was manipulated by varying the word order of past…

Education, science, and technology disciplines are closely and extensively connected in all formats and levels. The outbreak of COVID-19 has further squeezed this interconnection where the delivery of education in different scientific fields of studies at all education levels is almost impossible without the presence of technology. Today, there is…

In the present study, we explored why interspersing quantitative details through a multimedia lesson detracts from learners' qualitative understanding. Three experimental conditions were created. In each, participants had to study a qualitative text on the formation, propagation, and dispersion of ocean waves. In the concise condition no…

Purpose: Researchers have used the distortion-sensitivity approach in the psychoacoustical domain to investigate the role of auditory processing abilities in speech perception in noise (van Schijndel, Houtgast, & Festen, 2001; Goverts & Houtgast, 2010). In this study, the authors examined the potential applicability of the…

Several studies showed how coherence markers, like connectives and lexical cue phrases, influence the processing and representation of informative text. Although discourse analysts have repeatedly argued that coherence markers influence the processing of persuasive text as well, there is hardly any empirical evidence for this idea. This article…

Compares the acquisition of vocabulary by Dutch advanced students of French reading a French story in one of three text reading conditions: marginal glosses; dictionary; or control. Results indicate that frequency of word occurrence fosters incidental vocabulary learning more when the first two conditions exist. (40 references) (Author/CK)

Statistics is known to be a difficult subject, demanding students to perceive interrelations between numerous highly abstract concepts. Many students approach the subject with an evasive attitude, often resulting in rote learning yielding little conceptual understanding of statistics. Working from a constructivist paradigm, we aimed to stimulate…