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Papers by Carolina Gattei

電子情報通信学会技術研究報告. TL, 思考と言語, Aug 5, 2014

We examined the effects of argument-head distance in SVO and SOV languages (Spanish and German), ... more We examined the effects of argument-head distance in SVO and SOV languages (Spanish and German), while taking into account readers' working memory capacity and controlling for expectation and other factors. We predicted only locality effects, that is, a slowdown produced by increased dependency distance . Furthermore, we expected stronger locality effects for readers with low working memory capacity. Contrary to our predictions, low-capacity readers showed faster reading with increased distance, while high-capacity readers showed locality effects. We suggest that while the locality effects are compatible with memory-based explanations, the speedup of low-capacity readers can be explained by an increased probability of retrieval failure. We present a computational model based on ACT-R built under the previous assumptions, which is able to give a qualitative account for the present data and can be tested in future research. Our results suggest that in some cases, interpreting longer RTs as indexing increased processing difficulty and shorter RTs as facilitation may be too simplistic: The same increase in processing difficulty may lead to slowdowns in high-capacity readers and speedups in low-capacity ones. Ignoring individual level capacity differences when investigating locality effects may lead to misleading conclusions.

Estudios de lingüística aplicada, Aug 16, 2022

En este trabajo se llevó a cabo un estudio de comprensión auditiva de oraciones relativas con pre... more En este trabajo se llevó a cabo un estudio de comprensión auditiva de oraciones relativas con predicados psicológicos (p. ej. gustar) y de actividad (p. ej. sonreír) en español de Argentina. Los resultados muestran que las relativas de sujeto con predicados de actividad fueron más fáciles de procesar que las de objeto. En cambio, las relativas de objeto con predicados psicológicos fueron más sencillas que las de sujeto. Estos resultados argumentan a favor de propuestas sobre el procesamiento de asimetrías sujeto-objeto dependientes de las configuraciones estructurales de las oraciones, como la minimidad relativizada por rasgos , y son consistentes con el hecho de que no todas las lenguas se comportan de la misma manera durante la comprensión de oraciones relativas.

Revista Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento ( RACC ), 2018

Lenguaje, cognición y cerebro, 2012

La cuestión acerca de qué tipo de información utilizan los hablantes a la hora de procesar oracio... more La cuestión acerca de qué tipo de información utilizan los hablantes a la hora de procesar oraciones es clave en los campos de la psico y la neurolingüística. En el presente estudio se investigó en qué medida interviene la información proveniente de la interfaz sintaxis-semántica en la comprensión de oraciones. De manera más específica, se indagó qué tan robustos son el efecto de tipo de mapeo y el efecto de jerarquía del orden semántico en el procesamiento de oraciones en el español (Gattei, Vasishth y Dickey, 2010). Para ello, se llevó a cabo una tarea de auto-administración de lectura con oraciones con dos tipos de verbos psicológicos. Los verbos utilizados diferían en tipo de mapeo (directo o indirecto) y por lo tanto proveían evidencia sobre cómo la información preveniente de la interfaz sintaxis-semántica influye sobre la comprensión de oraciones. Los verbos fueron también manipulados con respecto al orden sintáctico con el objetivo de analizar si los participantes comprendían más fácilmente la oración cuando se respetaba la jerarquía canónica de los argumentos semánticos aun cuando el orden canónico sintáctico no se respetara. Los resultados mostraron que si bien el tipo de mapeo y el orden de los argumentos semánticos pueden modular la comprensión de oraciones, es necesario estudiar otros tipos de información que pueden tener un rol prominente en la integración de la información sintáctica y semántica.Fil: Gattei, Carolina Andrea. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Wainselboim, Alejandro Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Ciencias Humanas, Sociales y Ambientales; ArgentinaFil: Paris, Luis Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Ciencias Humanas, Sociales y Ambientales; Argentin

Anales de Lingüística, Sep 3, 2021

Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 2022

Research into second language (L2) reading is an exponentially growing field. Yet, it still has a... more Research into second language (L2) reading is an exponentially growing field. Yet, it still has a relatively short supply of comparable, ecologically valid data from readers representing a variety of first languages (L1). This article addresses this need by presenting a new data resource called MECO L2 (Multilingual Eye Movements Corpus), a rich behavioral eye-tracking record of text reading in English as an L2 among 543 university student speakers of 12 different L1s. MECO L2 includes a test battery of component skills of reading and allows for a comparison of the participants’ reading performance in their L1 and L2. This data resource enables innovative large-scale cross-sample analyses of predictors of L2 reading fluency and comprehension. We first introduce the design and structure of the MECO L2 resource, along with reliability estimates and basic descriptive analyses. Then, we illustrate the utility of MECO L2 by quantifying contributions of four sources to variability in L2 r...

Glossa Psycholinguistics

We present an eyetracking study that investigates how linking is achieved during real-time compre... more We present an eyetracking study that investigates how linking is achieved during real-time comprehension of Spanish sentences with causative psych verbs and alternative case marking. This group of verbs lead to verbs’ argument structures that require direct or inverse syntax-to-semantics linking according to the type of case marking assigned to their object. The study aimed at disentangling whether processing inverse linking was more costly than direct linking, and exploring how incremental argument interpretation takes place when lexemes that accept several case markings are used. Results showed that during incremental comprehension, inverse linking is more difficult than direct linking, irrespective of word order. As for argument interpretation, the current study partially replicated the results of previous studies conducted in this language using different verb types. Findings are discussed under the light of different psycholinguistic models addressing case marking processing an...

Language Learning

This article presents the ENglish Reading Online (ENRO) project that offers data on English readi... more This article presents the ENglish Reading Online (ENRO) project that offers data on English reading and listening comprehension from 7,338 university‐level advanced learners and native speakers of English representing 19 countries. The database also includes estimates of reading rate and seven component skills of English, including vocabulary, spelling, and grammar, as well as rich demographic and language background data. We first demonstrate high reliability for ENRO tests and their convergent validity with existing meta‐analyses. We then provide a bird's‐eye view of first (L1) and second (L2) language comparisons and examine the relative role of various predictors of reading and listening comprehension and reading speed. Across analyses, we found substantially more overlap than differences between L1 and L2 speakers, suggesting that English reading proficiency is best considered across a continuum of skill, ability, and experiences spanning L1 and L2 speakers alike. We end by...

Revista Signos, Dec 1, 2022

Many children with hearing impairment who use oral language (CHI) have a linguistic development t... more Many children with hearing impairment who use oral language (CHI) have a linguistic development that lags behind that of children with typical development (CTD). The assessment of their linguistic abilities is crucial in order to stimulate their development. The use of standardized tests, while useful for measuring differences between the level of linguistic development of CHI and the typical development expected for their age, can show a floor effect in CHI due to the discrepancy between their hearing experience and their age. This work aimed to analyze whether standard scores calculated with hearing age instead of chronological age can provide more precise information on the linguistic abilities of CHI. Fifty-six Spanish-speaking CHI were administered the Peabody receptive vocabulary test. Floor effects were significantly less frequent in standard scores calculated with hearing age. Also, a significant difference was observed between the CHI's chronological age and their equivalent age (i.e., the age their level of vocabulary corresponds to), with a mean difference of over three years, but not between their equivalent age and their hearing age, with a mean difference of four months. These results suggest that examining standard scores calculated with hearing age might provide more precise information regarding the level of linguistic development of CHI than standard scores calculated with chronological age and, thus, might be a good complement in assessment. Moreover, the results underlie the advantage of assessment tools that provide scales of children's level of development in a certain ability, independently of their chronological age.

Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics

Previous studies have demonstrated that in spontaneous speech, Rioplatense Spanish speakers—in co... more Previous studies have demonstrated that in spontaneous speech, Rioplatense Spanish speakers—in contrast to speakers of Peninsular Spanish—sometimes produce clitic-doubled accusative nominal objects. If this contrast between varieties reflects different grammatical systems, it would be expected to also affect the acceptability of clitic doubling across varieties. We tested this hypothesis in a judgment study that compared the acceptability of dative and accusative clitic-doubled objects between Rioplatense and Peninsular Spanish speakers. Speakers of both varieties showed similar preferences with dative clitic doubling, consistent with previous work. By contrast, accusative clitic doubling was highly acceptable in Rioplatense Spanish, but not in Peninsular Spanish. Based on accounts of the diachronic development of clitic doubling, we argue that the Rioplatense speakers exhibit a diachronically advanced behavior compared to Peninsular Spanish speakers.

Children construct their social preferences and behaviors based on their social interactions and ... more Children construct their social preferences and behaviors based on their social interactions and beliefs about others’ behavior. Most studies that evaluate the influence of social norms on children’s sharing behavior has focused on sharing decisions, while no previous study has evaluated whether norms about generosity could change beliefs about others’ sharing behavior. In the current study, 4–10-year-old children (N = 101) played two dictator games; one as baseline and the other after being exposed to either a generous or a selfish descriptive norm. Our results showed that, after being exposed to descriptive norms, all children changed their beliefs about others’ sharing behavior. However, these norms did not influence children’s sharing decisions. These results suggest that children´s beliefs about sharing behavior could be more malleable than their actual sharing decisions. These insights might help to design interventions aimed to change beliefs and, in turn, model prosocial beh...

Los compuestos verbo-nombre del español presentan la particularidad de carecer de un núcleo que a... more Los compuestos verbo-nombre del español presentan la particularidad de carecer de un núcleo que aporte los rasgos morfológicos, de categoría o semántico-referenciales. El acceso al significado depende entonces de la relación que mantienen los constituyentes entre sí y no a partir de la identificación de un elemento nuclear, como ocurre en compuestos que poseen un lexema referencial (telaraña, bocacalle). Dentro del compuesto verbo-nombre, la relación semántica que se establece entre los constituyentes no es única. Si bien la estructura semántica prototípica responde al patrón agente-paciente (cortacésped), existen otras posibilidades argumentales, como las relaciones locativas (pasacalle). El estudio realizado tuvo como objetivo determinar hasta qué punto la estructura argumental proyectada por el verbo tiene una influencia en el procesamiento cognitivo de estas unidades. Primeramente, se llevó a cabo un juicio de aceptabilidad para asegurar que los estímulos se correspondieran con ...

El objetivo de este trabajo es describir los recursos temporales presentes en las narrativas oral... more El objetivo de este trabajo es describir los recursos temporales presentes en las narrativas orales producidas por niños/as de 5 años de la provincia de Mendoza según el contexto socioeducativo en el que viven (contexto no vulnerable y contexto vulnerable). Además, contrastar dichos aspectos con narrativas de adultos. Particularmente, se analiza el cambio de tipo aspectual (Formas Correlacionadas y Formas No Correlacionadas), aspecto léxico, aspecto gramatical y tiempo verbal utilizado.

The asymmetry in the processing of subject (S) and object (O) relative clauses (RC) is well docum... more The asymmetry in the processing of subject (S) and object (O) relative clauses (RC) is well documented in literature and seems to be present in a wide range of languages (e.g, in Span-ish; in English; in German; and French). However, this asymmetry has mostly been studied in sentences with transitive activity predicates (ACT), while there has been no evidence reported regarding the processing of RCs with psychological predicates (PSY). Memory based accounts of this phenomena predict a general locality preference for shorter filler-gap dependencies (Gibson, 1998; Lewis & Vasishth, 2005). In the case RCs with ACTs, SRCs instantiate a shorter filler-gap dependency than ORCs and this explains why the former are easier to process. How-ever, considering the structural properties of PSYs in Spanish (see note 1), it’s in the case of ORCs that a shorter filler-gap dependency is established. Therefore, the processing of ORCs with these predicates should entail less difficulty and lower cognitive effort than SRCs. Task-evoked pupillary responses (TEPR) have been used as a reliable neurophysiological index of cognitive effort in different domains (Beatty, 1982; Beatty & Lucero-Wagoner, 2000). In the sen-tence comprehension domain, TEPRs have provided a measure of differential processing cost according to the type of structure and its syntactic complexity (e.g, Just and Carpenter, 1993; Scheepers & Crocker, 2004; Schluroff, 1982). Design: 33 subjects participated in an auditory sentence comprehension task. They were asked to listen to a sentence; then were showed an image and were prompted to judge whether the image they saw faithfully reflected the content of the sentence heard or not (see Fig. 1). The stimuli (n=20) consisted of RCs with PSYs (1) and with ACTs (2) (see note 2). We manipulated the type of RC with each predicate: SRCs (1.a and 2.a) and ORCs (1.b and 2.b). The images selected were counterbalanced to make the sen-tences either true or false. Response accuracy and reaction times (RTs), as well as TEPRs, were measured during the task. Pupil diameter was monitored using a desktop-mounted, video-based eye tracker (EyeLink 1000, SR Research Ltd., Ontario, Canada) at a sampling rate of 1000 Hz. Results: on average, participants answered 89% (SE= 0.8%) of the total stimuli cor-rectly; Figs. 2 and 3 show mean correct answers and standard error, and mean RTs and stan-dard error (only RTs of correct answers were considered) according to condition respectively. Linear mixed-effect models were fitted for data analysis. Results show that RCs with PSYs were harder to comprehend (p=.02) and were processed more slowly (p<.001) than RCs with ACTs. As it was expected, in the case of RC with ACTs, SRCs were easier to comprehend (p=.003) and faster to process than ORCs (p=.004). In the case of PSYs, we found that ORCs were easier to comprehend (p=.007) but that there were no significant differences between ORCs and SRCs RTs (p=.58). Analysis of TEPRs (in progress): For each individual trial, mean pupil size during the presentation of the fixation cross will be considered as baseline pu-pil size. Cognitive effort of sentence processing will be operationalized as the difference be-tween the maximum pupil diameter size achieved during the exploration of the image and the pause after the response and the baseline pupil diameter size (ΔTEPR). Linear mixed-effects models will be fitted for data analysis with ΔTEPR as dependent variable, predicate type and RC type as fixed factors, log verb frequency as control factor, and item and subject as random factors. Discussion: Accuracy measures showed the expected pattern, i.e. opposite asymme-tries for SRC/ORC with ACTs and PSYs. However, the asymmetry is not evident for PSYs re-garding RTs. We hypothesize that while more time (compared to ACTs) leads to accurate res-ponses in the case of the less demanding ORC, it does not comprise enough time to get the right answer in the more difficult SRC. We will explore this issue using pupil size measures as a proxy of the entailed cognitive demand. Conclusions: Our results agree to some extent with the predictions of memory based explanations of the SRC/ORC asymmetry regarding the processing of RCs with PSYs in Spanish. Pupil size data will help understanding the dynamics of the cognitive effort entailed by the processing of these specific structures.

Working memory differences in long-distance dependency resolution

電子情報通信学会技術研究報告. TL, 思考と言語, Aug 5, 2014

Estudios de lingüística aplicada, Aug 16, 2022

Revista Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento ( RACC ), 2018

Lenguaje, cognición y cerebro, 2012

Anales de Lingüística, Sep 3, 2021

Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 2022

Glossa Psycholinguistics

Language Learning

Revista Signos, Dec 1, 2022

Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics

Working memory differences in long-distance dependency resolution

One of the major tasks involved in comprehending sentences is understanding ?who did what to whom... more One of the major tasks involved in comprehending sentences is understanding ?who did what to whom?. In order to do so, readers need to link sentential syntactic constituents to the appropriate thematic role for each verb. Evidence from German, an SOV language, has shown that the parser does not wait until the verb is read in order to form a prediction about how such linking should proceed (Bader and Bayer, 2006). Moreover, a number of studies shows that appearance of an unexpected verb after prominence (the hierarchical relationship between sentential arguments) is wrongly computed entails differential electrophysiological correlates due to thematic reanalysis effects (Bornkessel, Schlesewsky and Friederici, 2003, Bornkessel- Schlesewsky and Schlesewsky, 2009 among others). However, up to the best of our knowledge, little is known about the role of prominence in SVO languages that also allow word order variation. In order to fill this gap, we conducted and ERP study in Spanish (N=23), and examined the role of prominence for comprehension in this language by testing the interplay between word order (SVO vs. OVS) and type of verb (Activity vs. Object Experiencer psych verbs). While the verb in sentences (a) and (b) assign the most prominent role (i.e. Agent) to the nominative constituent, the verb in sentences (c) and (d) assign the most prominent role (i.e. Experiencer) to the dative constituent. Activity SVO: (a) María le grita a Juan (MaríaNOM yells at JuanDAT); Activity OVS: (b) A María le grita Juan (JuanNOM yells at MaríaDAT). OE SVO: (c) María le gusta a Juan (MaríaNOM appeals to JuanDAT); OE OVS: (d) A María le gusta Juan (JuanNOM appeals to MaríaDAT); Predictions: If computation of prominence indeed plays a role for comprehension in languages that allow word order variation, an ERP effect should be found in both SVO sentences with object experiencer (OE) verbs, and OVS sentences with activity verbs, due to difficulty of integration of these verbs after a constituent that comprises the least prominent argument of the event. Results: At the disambiguating region of the verb , subject-initial sentences show a positivity for OE verbs (maximum at 600 ms; centroparietal topography); and object-initial sentences show a negativity (maximum at 400 ms, centroparietal topography), and a positivity (maximum at 600 ms, broadly distributed topography) for activity verbs. Conclusion: Results suggest that in context-free declarative sentences, subject-initial arguments are firstly linked to the Agent role, the highest ranked thematic role for nominative case in Spanish. When an OE verb is encountered, thematic role for the previous argument needs to be revised. Conversely, object-initial arguments are firstly linked to the role of Experiencer, the most prominent thematic role for this constituent in initial position. When an agentive verb is encountered, this decision needs to be amended. All in all, results demonstrate that thematic expectations -and thus, linking- are generated incrementally, and may even be based upon the appearance of a single argument, as it occurs in SVO languages.

Amlap, 2020

CUNY, 2020

The asymmetry in the processing of subject (SR) and object (OR) relative clauses (RC) is well doc... more The asymmetry in the processing of subject (SR) and object (OR) relative clauses (RC) is well documented in literature and seems to be present in a wide range of languages: in language acquisition (e.g. Friedmann et al. 2009), in sentence production (e.g. Belletti & Contemori 2010; in Spanish, Muñoz Pérez & Lago 2012); and in sentence comprehension (e.g. Gordon et al. 2004; in Spanish, Sánchez et al. 2017). However, this asymmetry has only been studied in sentences with transitive activity predicates, while there has been no evidence reported regarding the processing of RCs with psychological predicates. Since Friedmann et al. (2009), it has been argued that the advantage for SRs can be explained by the Featural Relativized Minimality theory (fRM; Rizzi 2004) as an effect of syntactic intervention. As both the subject NP and the object NP share the [+N] syntactic feature, the subject NP functions as an intervener when the object NP moves to the left periphery, hindering the establishment of the syntactic dependency. However, the syntactic structure of sentences with third class psychological predicates such as gustar („to like‟) differs from the structure of sentences with transitive activity verbs (Belletti & Rizzi 1988). In Spanish, the „object‟ of psychological predicates is generated in a higher syntactic position than the subject (Pujalte 2015), i.e. as a high applicative phrase (Pylkkänen 2008). Therefore, the effects of syntactic intervention should occur in the opposite condition. Hence, we expect that the processing of ORs with these kind of predicates entails lower cognitive cost than SRs. Design: we designed a sentence comprehension task in which participants (n=33) were asked to listen to a sentence; then were showed an image and they had to decide whether the sentence they heard was true or false regarding the image they saw. The stimuli (n=20) consisted of RCs with third class psychological predicates (1) and with transitive activity verbs (2). In Spanish third class psychological predicates project the theme of the event with nominative case and the experiencer with dative case, so we chose transitive activity predicates that also project the agent of the event with nominative case and the patient with dative case. We manipulated the type of RC with each predicate: RCs with the nominative case argument as the antecedent or „subject‟ (1.a and 2.a) and RCs with dative arguments as the antecedent or „object‟ (1.b and 2.b). The image showed after the sentence was randomly selected to make the sentence either true or false. Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 show sample picture stimuli for sentences in (1). Response accuracy and reaction times (RTs) were measured during the task. Results: on average, participants answered 89% (SE= .8) of the total stimuli correctly; Table 1 shows the mean of correct answers and standard error per condition; Table 2 shows the mean of RTs and standard error. Linear mixed-effect models were fitted for data analysis. Results show that RCs with psychological predicates were harder to comprehend (p=.02) and were processed more slowly (p<.001) than RCs with activity verbs. As it was expected, in the case of RCs with activity verbs, SRs were easier to comprehend (p=.003) and faster to process than ORs (p=.004). In the case of RCs with psychological predicates, we found that ORs were easier to comprehend (p=.007) but that there were no significant differences between ORs and SRs RTs (p=.82). Discussion: As predicted, SRs with psychological predicates were more difficult to comprehend than ORs. These results can be explained as an effect of the intervention of the „object‟ NP in the movement of the subject NP to the left periphery, following the fMR proposal. They are also consistent with the fact that not all languages exhibit the same pattern of SR/OR asymmetry, depending of the structural properties of these languages (Hsiao & Gibson 2003 for Chinese; Ishizuka et al. 2006 for Japanese; Carreiras et al. 2010 for Basque; Kwon et al. (2013) for Korean). Conclusions: Our results agree to some extent with the predictions of fRM regarding the processing of RCs with psychological predicates and point to a structure-dependent account of the RCs processing asymmetries. However, further research is needed to explain the difference between the cognitive effort indicated by the RTs and the response accuracy in the case of RCs with psychological predicates.

SAN, 2020

Task-evoked pupillary responses (TEPR) have been used as a reliable neurophysiological index of c... more Task-evoked pupillary responses (TEPR) have been used as a reliable neurophysiological index of cognitive effort in different domains (Beatty, 1982; Beatty & Lucero-Wagoner, 2000). In the sentence comprehension domain, TEPRs have provided a measure of differential processing cost according to the type of structure and its syntactic complexity (e.g, Just and Carpenter, 1993; Scheepers & Crocker, 2004; Sevilla et al. 2014). Sentences with subject-extracted (S) relative clauses (RC), have been consistently reported in psycholinguistic literature to be easier to process than object-extracted (O) RCs (e.g. in Spanish, Betancort et al., 2009; Sánchez et al., 2017). However, there have been no studies evaluating the comprehension of RCs in Spanish using TEPRs. In this study, an auditory sentence comprehension task with SRCs and ORC in Spanish was carried out. Response accuracy, reaction times (RTs) and TEPRs were measured during the task. Pupil diameter was monitored using a desktop-mounted, video-based eye tracker at a sampling rate of 1000 Hz. Linear mixed-effect models were fitted for data analysis. Results show that ORCs were harder to comprehend than SRCs: more prone to errors (p < .001), processed more slowly (p < .001) and showed higher increase in pupil size (p = .03). Our data agrees with previous studies on the comprehension of RCs and confirm the sensibility of TEPRs as a proxy for cognitive effort related to syntactic processes in sentence comprehension.

Lingüística y Literatura, 2021

Se llevó a cabo un estudio de comprensión auditiva de oraciones de relativo (OR) encabezadas y se... more Se llevó a cabo un estudio de comprensión auditiva de oraciones de relativo (OR) encabezadas y semilibres en la variante del español argentino. Los resultados muestran que las ORs de objeto son más difíciles de comprender que las de sujeto, tanto en el caso de las encabezadas como en el de las semilibres. Estos resultados argumentan a favor de la propuesta de intervención por inclusión de rasgos morfosintácticos (Rizzi, 2004), ya que en ambos tipos de ORs de objeto se encuentra un restrictor léxico, propiedad expresada por un rasgo nominal [+N], que interfiere en el establecimiento de la dependencia sintáctica.