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Experience and sentence processing: statistical learning and relative clause comprehension.

Justine B Wells1, Morten H Christiansen, David S Race

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

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Reading experience significantly improves object relative clause comprehension. Increased exposure to complex sentence structures enhances processing speed, demonstrating the impact of statistical learning on language acquisition.

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Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Computational Linguistics

Background:

  • Object relative clauses pose interpretation challenges, often attributed to working memory load.
  • Individual differences in reading experience may explain varying difficulties with complex sentence structures.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the role of reading experience in processing object relative clauses.
  • To test the hypothesis that increased experience with relative clauses improves comprehension and reduces processing difficulty.

Main Methods:

  • A large-scale study involved adults undergoing manipulated reading experiences over several weeks.
  • Reading speeds for object and subject relative clauses were measured.
  • Reading time data were compared with a computational model simulating experience effects.

Main Results:

  • Participants receiving specific relative clause experience showed greater improvement in reading speeds for object relatives compared to subject relatives.
  • A control group without this specific experience did not show similar improvements.
  • Computational modeling supported the findings, indicating a role for statistical learning.

Conclusions:

  • Reading experience significantly influences the processing of object relative clauses.
  • Individual differences in sentence comprehension are partly explained by accumulated linguistic experience.
  • Statistical learning mechanisms play a crucial role in adapting to and mastering complex grammatical structures.