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How Robust Is Discourse Processing for Native Readers? The Role of Connectives and the Coherence Relations They
Mathis Wetzel1, Sandrine Zufferey1, Pascal Gygax2
1Institut de Langue et de Littérature Françaises, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Frontiers in Psychology
|March 4, 2022
Summary
Readers process discourse connectives robustly, even rare ones. Frequent connectives offer the highest reading ease, while infrequent ones can alter reading fluency when used inappropriately.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Computational Linguistics
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Corpus studies reveal subtle differences among discourse connectives with similar coherence relations.
- Online discourse processing research has primarily examined a limited range of connectives.
- Rare or polyfunctional connectives may influence reading patterns differently.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the robustness of discourse processing for French native speakers.
- To examine how readers process causal and concessive sentences with appropriate vs. inappropriate connectives.
- To assess the impact of connective frequency and polyfunctionality on reading patterns.
Main Methods:
- Three experiments were conducted with French native speakers.
- Reading patterns were measured by processing causal and concessive sentences.
- Experiments manipulated connective characteristics: frequency (Experiment 1 & 2) and polyfunctionality (Experiment 3).
Main Results:
- Processing of incoherent items was affected across all tested connectives.
- Altered reading fluency was observed specifically when infrequent connectives were used.
- Frequent connectives generally facilitated higher reading ease.
Conclusions:
- Discourse processing demonstrates significant robustness, even with rare connectives.
- Readers can integrate meaning from less frequent connectives.
- Connective frequency impacts reading fluency, with frequent connectives yielding optimal ease.
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