Eunice Fernandes | Universidade de Lisboa (original) (raw)

Papers by Eunice Fernandes

To examine the combined effects of ageing and bilingualism in language processing, we tested youn... more To examine the combined effects of ageing and bilingualism in language processing, we tested young and older monolingual and bilingual speakers in L1 comprehension and production. In Experiment 1, bilinguals detected words slower than monolinguals in sentences with low-constraint context, but not when high-constraint was provided. Older adults outperformed younger adults in high-constraint sentences. In Experiment 2, older speakers were slower than younger to produce small-scope prepositional phrases (e.g., ‘the cone above the grape), suggesting more extensive planning. Bilingual disadvantages were observed in larger-scope complex phrases (e.g., ‘the cone and the pink grape’). The results overall support bilingual disadvantages in syntactic processing and age-preserved syntax, alongside semantic processing unaffected by either bilingualism or age. We found no interactions between age and bilingualism, suggesting that these two factors independently impact on language processing.

Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition, Jul 16, 2019

Age-related differences during visual search: the role of contextual expectations and cognitive c... more Age-related differences during visual search: the role of contextual expectations and cognitive control mechanisms. During the visual search, cognitive control mechanisms activate to inhibit distracting information and efficiently orient attention towards contextually relevant regions likely to contain the search target. Cognitive ageing is known to hinder cognitive control mechanisms, however little is known about their interplay with contextual expectations, and their role in visual search. In two eyetracking experiments, we compared the performance of a younger and an older group of participants searching for a target object varying in semantic consistency with the search scene (e.g., a basket of bread vs. a clothes iron in a restaurant scene) after being primed with contextual information either congruent or incongruent with it (e.g., a restaurant vs. a bathroom). Primes were administered either as scenes (Experiment 1) or words (Experiment 2, which included scrambled words as neutral primes). Participants also completed two inhibition tasks (Stroop and Flanker) to assess their cognitive control. Older adults had greater difficulty than younger adults when searching for inconsistent objects, especially when primed with congruent information (Experiment 1), or a scrambled word (neutral condition, Experiment 2). When the target object violates the semantics of the search context, congruent expectations or perceptual distractors, have to be suppressed through cognitive control, as they are irrelevant to the search. In fact, higher cognitive control, especially in older participants, was associated with better target detection in these more challenging conditions, although it did not influence eye-movement responses. These results shed new light on the links between cognitive control, contextual expectations and visual attention in healthy ageing.

Tese de doutoramento, Ciencia Cognitiva, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciencias, Faculdade... more Tese de doutoramento, Ciencia Cognitiva, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciencias, Faculdade de Letras, Faculdade de Medicina, Faculdade de Psicologia, 2015

This project will determine the relative benefits of regular physical activity and bilingualism f... more This project will determine the relative benefits of regular physical activity and bilingualism for the amelioration of cognitive decline in old age. Our project focuses on language because it is a core aspect of human cognition, which has received surprisingly little attention in ageing research given its tremendous impact on well-being. Our own previous research has demonstrated that healthy older adults experience a decline in language function, which is characterized by word finding difficulties (Hardy, Segaert, & Wheeldon, 2020; Segaert et al., 2018), slower and more disfluent sentence production (Hardy, Segaert, & Wheeldon, 2020; Hardy, Wheeldon & Segaert, 2020), and slower and less accurate sentence comprehension (Poulisse, Wheeldon, & Segaert, 2019). Such language problems impact older adults' functioning (Lovelace & Twohig, 1990) and can lead to social withdrawal and loneliness (Ryan et al., 1986). The current project therefore investigates how to ameliorate such langua...

Pseudo-relative (PR) clauses have been argued to underlie high attachment (HA) preferences in RC-... more Pseudo-relative (PR) clauses have been argued to underlie high attachment (HA) preferences in RC-attachment ambiguities. PRs are possible with perception verbs which create the anticipation of a perceivable event. They demand the relative clause and the matrix clause being in the same time frame. Availability of PRs varies across languages but also across speakers of a language or language varieties. For BP as well as for EP evidence for basic attachment preferences is mixed as is evidence for the availability of PRs. Our questionnaire studies in BP and EP asked for attachment preferences in sentences like ?Maria saw/sees the daughter of the teacher who ran the marathon.? We varied verb-type (perception vs. stative verbs like lived-with) and tense-match between the RC-verb and the matrix verb. If the PR-reading is driving high attachment preferences, only perception verb sentences with matching tenses should boost HA. We found significant effects of variety (more HA for EP), verb-type (more HA for perception verbs across tense-match conditions), and a marginal (.08) interaction verb-type*tense. Across varieties, most HA were found for perception verbs with matching tense compatible with the PR-hypothesis. However, even for mismatching tense, perception verbs attracted more HA, suggesting a semantic effect beyond PR-availability.

Cognitive mechanisms sustaining reading, viewing and working memory are mostly independently exam... more Cognitive mechanisms sustaining reading, viewing and working memory are mostly independently examined. In this study, we investigate their interaction in a visual-world priming task. Participants first read relative clauses (RC) morphologically disambiguated for high-(to NP1, HA) or low-attachment (to NP2, LA) (e.g., The helper|helpers of the bakers|baker who will [sg] deliver the bread has|have arrived), and then heard a spoken temporarily ambiguous RC (e.g., the father of the baby who will drink the beer|baby bottle is tall) while presented with a visual context (i.e., VWP). Using linear-mixed effects models, we predict anticipatory fixations to the visual referents associated with NP1 and NP2 as a function of: (i) second-pass time observed during their reading and (ii) individual working memory scores. We demonstrate that high-capacity individuals anticipate more the (non-primed) visual referent when they reread more its associated NP (e.g., anticipate the visual referent ‘father...

Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 2019

Research on structural priming in the visual-world paradigm (VWP) has examined how visual referen... more Research on structural priming in the visual-world paradigm (VWP) has examined how visual referents are looked at when participants are repeatedly exposed to sentences with the same or a different syntactic structure. A core finding is that participants look more at a visual referent when it is consistent with the primed interpretation. In this study, we examine the hypothesis that by using multiple primes, we should induce a stronger structural preference, and hence, observe more looks to the visual referent that is consistent with the interpretation of the primed structure. In three VWP eye-tracking experiments, Portuguese speakers were asked to read aloud one, two or three relative clause (RC) sentences that were morphologically disambiguated towards a highor low-attachment reading. Then, they were presented with a visual display and listened to an ambiguous RC. Listeners fixated more the referent consistent with the primed attachment after one prime, but unexpectedly looked more at the referent consistent with the nonprimed attachment following two and three primes. In a fourth experiment, we assessed the gaze pattern during unambiguous RC processing, and found a consistent preference for looking at the non-antecedent referent. Our experiments show that exposure to multiple primes can lead to fewer looks to the primed antecedent. Moreover, people do not seem to always look at the antecedent consistent with the attachment, suggesting that the link between attending to visual information and understanding spoken information may not be straightforward.

Fixations prop on S1 Predictor Est. S.E. t p (Intercept) 0,15 0,02 7,87 0,0001 activation 0,00 0,... more Fixations prop on S1 Predictor Est. S.E. t p (Intercept) 0,15 0,02 7,87 0,0001 activation 0,00 0,03 0,00 1,00 prime 0,01 0,03 0,19 0,85 Time1 -0,02 0,01 -2,31 0,02 Time2 0,00 0,01 -0,44 0,66 activation:prime 0,06 0,02 4,15 0,0001 activation:Time1 0,02 0,02 0,97 0,33 prime:Time1 0,04 0,02 2,12 0,03 activation:Time2 0,02 0,02 0,93 0,35 prime:Time2 0,01 0,02 0,58 0,56 activation:prime:Time1 -0,07 0,04 -1,63 0,10 activation:prime:Time2 -0,03 0,04 -0,73 0,47

In visual search tasks, distractor objects must be inhibited to successfully orient attention tow... more In visual search tasks, distractor objects must be inhibited to successfully orient attention towards the target of the search. Older adults experience more difficulties in such tasks because their executive control, which underlies inhibitory responses, is likely impaired. In this study, we bring fresh evidences about the impact of cognitive ageing on the interplay between top-down contextual expectations and executive control mechanisms during search in naturalistic scenes. A young and an older group of participants had to find a target object varying in consistency with the search scene (e.g., a basket of bread or an iron in a restaurant scene) after being cued with another scene which was congruent or incongruent with it (e.g., a restaurant vs. a bathroom). They were also asked to complete two executive control tasks (Stroop and Flanker) to assess their individual inhibitory capacity. Our main result was that older adults found it harder to identify inconsistent objects when pri...

Searching for an object in a complex scene is influenced by high-level factors such as how much t... more Searching for an object in a complex scene is influenced by high-level factors such as how much the item would be expected in that setting (semantic consistency). There is also evidence that a person gazing at an object directs our attention towards it. However, there has been little previous research that has helped to understand how we integrate top-down cues such as semantic consistency and gaze to direct attention when searching for an object. Also, there are separate lines of evidence to suggest that older adults may be more influenced by semantic factors and less by gaze cues compared to younger counterparts, but this has not been investigated before in an integrated task. In the current study we analysed eye-movements of 34 younger and 30 older adults as they searched for a target object in complex visual scenes. Younger adults were influenced by semantic consistency in their attention to objects, but were more influenced by gaze cues. In contrast, older adults were more guid...

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

Previous research accounting for pronoun resolution as a problem of probabilistic inference has n... more Previous research accounting for pronoun resolution as a problem of probabilistic inference has not explored the phenomenon of adaptation, whereby the processor constantly tracks and adapts, rationally, to changes in a statistical environment. We investigate whether Brazilian (BP) and European Portuguese (EP) speakers adapt to variations in the probability of occurrence of ambiguous overt and null pronouns, in two experiments assessing resolution towards subject and object referents. For each variety (BP, EP), participants were faced with either the same number of null and overt pronouns (equal distribution), or with an environment with fewer overt (than null) pronouns (unequal distribution). We find that the preference for interpreting overt pronouns as referring back to an object referent (objectbiased interpretation) is higher when there are fewer overt pronouns (i.e., in the unequal, relative to the equal distribution condition). This is especially the case for BP, a variety with higher prior frequency and smaller object-biased interpretation of overt pronouns, suggesting that participants adapted incrementally and integrated prior statistical knowledge with the knowledge obtained in the experiment. We hypothesize that comprehenders adapted rationally, with the goal of maintaining, across variations in pronoun probability, the likelihood of subject and object referents. Our findings unify insights from research in pronoun resolution and in adaptation, and add to previous studies in both topics: They provide evidence for the influence of pronoun probability in pronoun resolution, and for an adaptation process whereby the language processor not only tracks statistical information, but uses it to make interpretational inferences.

Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition, Jul 16, 2019

Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 2019

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition