Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 10, 2026

Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks
Published on: September 5, 2019
The impact of number mismatch and passives on the real-time processing of relative clauses
Carla Contemori1, Theodoros Marinis2
1Pennsylvania State University, USA.
Abstract:
Language processing plays a crucial role in language development, providing the ability to assign structural representations to input strings (e.g., Fodor, 1998). In this paper we aim at contributing to the study of children's processing routines, examining the operations underlying the auditory processing of relative clauses in children compared to adults. English-speaking children (6;0-8;11) and adults participated in the study, which employed a self-paced listening task with a final comprehension question. The aim was to determine (i) the role of number agreement in object relative clauses in which the subject and object NPs differ in terms of number properties, and (ii) the role of verb morphology (active vs. passive) in subject relative clauses. Even though children's off-line accuracy was not always comparable to that of adults, analyses of reaction times results support the view that children have the same structural processing reflexes observed in adults.
Related Concept Videos
Framing Effects
Constraints and Statical Determinacy
Passive Filters
Low-Pass Filters
Low-pass filters are designed to transmit signals with frequencies lower than the cutoff frequency, ωc, and attenuate those above it. The cutoff frequency...
Causes of Similarity-Dissimilarity Effect
Interference: Path Lengths
Two special sources may be considered when they are in phase. This can be easily achieved by feeding the two sources from the same source. An example would be synchronizing the two speakers by feeding them with the same source, such as the sound waves produced by a tuning fork. This setup ensures that the two sources have the same frequency and are...
Complementation Tests
Organisms heterozygous for different mutations are crossed pairwise in all combinations. If present on different genes, the mutations can complement each other by providing the missing...

