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ERIC Number: EJ883265
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0169-0965
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Three-Year-Olds Are Sensitive to Semantic Prominence during Online Language Comprehension: A Visual World Study of Pronoun Resolution
Pyykkonen, Pirita; Matthews, Danielle; Jarvikivi, Juhani
Language and Cognitive Processes, v25 n1 p115-129 2010
Recent evidence from adult pronoun comprehension suggests that semantic factors such as verb transitivity affect referent salience and thereby anaphora resolution. We tested whether the same semantic factors influence pronoun comprehension in young children. In a visual world study, 3-year-olds heard stories that began with a sentence containing either a high or a low transitivity verb. Looking behaviour to pictures depicting the subject and object of this sentence was recorded as children listened to a subsequent sentence containing a pronoun. Children showed a stronger preference to look to the subject as opposed to the object antecedent in the low transitivity condition. In addition there were general preferences (1) to look to the subject in both conditions and (2) to look more at both potential antecedents in the high transitivity condition. This suggests that children, like adults, are affected by semantic factors, specifically semantic prominence, when interpreting anaphoric pronouns. (Contains 4 footnotes, 3 tables, and 2 figures.)
Psychology Press. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A