This study investigated the effects of linear distance, agreement attraction, and working memory (WM) on the processing of English third-person singular subject-verb agreement by second language (L2) learners whose first language (L1) is Thai. Grounded in the Linear Distance Hypothesis (Gibson, 1998, 2000), the study hypothesized that linear…

An important issue in second-language acquisition concerns the role of explicit information (EI) and how it is affected by individual differences. The present study explored this question through a partial replication and extension of Fernández (2008: Experiment 2), which investigated the effects of EI in processing instruction (PI) for the…

This study examines the referential context effect on second-language relative clause ambiguity resolution by proficient L1 Chinese learners who learn English as a foreign language (EFL) and investigates whether the ambiguity resolution process is constrained by individuals' working memory capacity (WMC). It presents a self-paced reading study and…

This study examines context effects on lexical processing by low-proficiency Japanese learners of English during sentence comprehension, and the role of individual differences in verbal working memory (WM). Thirty Japanese learners of English as a second language (L2) and 27 speakers of English as a first language (L1) were recruited for a…

This study replicates Felser and Roberts (2007), which used a cross-modal picture priming task to examine indirect-object dependency processing in classroom L2 learners. The replication focuses on early L2 learners with extensive naturalistic L2 exposure (n = 22)--an understudied group in the literature--and investigates whether these learners, in…

Since its first adoption as a computational model for language learning, evidence has accumulated that Rescorla-Wagner error-correction learning (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) captures several aspects of language processing. Whereas previous studies have provided general support for the Rescorla-Wagner rule by using it to explain the behavior of…

This study examined the effects of working memory (WM), structure, and salience on the processing of English relative clauses (RCs) and participial reduced relative clauses (PRRCs) by L1 Thai learners. Salience in this research is the phonological alterations required for irregular verbs to inflect into the past participial form. The study…

The present study aims to examine incidental vocabulary learning from different genres of captioned videos while considering frequency, vocabulary knowledge, comprehension, and working memory. A total of 210 learners who learn English as a foreign language (EFL) were assigned to 6 treatment conditions that differed in terms of video genres…

To contribute to a better understanding of first language (L1) and second language (L2) sentence processing, this study investigated the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and relative clause (RC) attachment preference of Persian learners of English as a foreign language . Additionally, the impact of segmentation of experimental…

This mixed-methods study investigated the impact of musical lyrics and working memory capacities on second language (L2) English reading comprehension among adult Chinese native speakers. Participants were 57 adult ESL learners with advanced L2 proficiency, divided into high and low working memory capacity groups based on a pre-test. They…

This study examined the extent to which L2 writers with varied working memory display differential pausing and revision behaviors at different periods during writing. The participants were 30 advanced Chinese L2 users of English, who wrote an argumentative essay. While composing, participants' keystrokes and eye-gaze movements were recorded to…

The present study investigates the time course of acoustic cue integration in the processing of the Korean three-way laryngeal stop contrast by native Korean listeners and English second language (L2) learners of Korean. As such, this study seeks to understand how native listeners and L2 learners weight and integrate fine-grained acoustic…

This study investigates the relationships among working memory (WM), syntactic parsing ability (SP), and L2 reading performance across varying proficiency levels. A cohort of 120 L1-Persian EFL learners was categorized into beginner, intermediate, and advanced proficiency groups based on their IELTS scores. Participants completed a reading span…

This study is designed to explore the role of second language (L2) English learners' working memory (WM), language proficiency, and age in the processing and comprehension of English anaphoric sentences. To this end, 40 EFL learners participated in the study. The proficiency levels of the participants varied from elementary to high-intermediate,…

This study investigated bilingualism effects on the production of focus in 5- to 9-year-old Cantonese-English bilingual autistic children's L1 Cantonese, compared to their monolingual autistic peers as well as monolingual and bilingual typically developing children matched in nonverbal IQ, working memory, receptive vocabulary and maternal…