Online methods
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
On-line methods
Reading: Clahsen, H. 2008. Behavioral Methods for Investigating Morphological and
Syntactic Processing in Children. In I. Sekerina, E. Fernández & H. Clahsen, (eds.),
Developmental psycholinguistics: On-line methods in children’s language processing.
Benjamins: Amsterdam, pp. 1-27.
On-line experimental techniques tap into automatic unconscious processes involved in
language comprehension and production and minimize participants‘ reliance on explicit
or metalinguistic knowledge.
What is the difference between off-line and on-line tasks? ( from Vicky Chondrogianni &
Theo Marinis, Cost meeting, Cyprus, 2010)

Off-line tasks measure how participants interpret a sentence after they have heard
the complete sentence;
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In off-line tasks, participants can have time to think about the meaning of the
sentence >> explicit knowledge.
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On-line tasks measure the participants’ performance as the sentence unfolds.
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In on-line tasks, participants don’t have time to think about the sentence >>
implicit knowledge.
“There are two basic types of time-sensitive measures available to examine language
processing: behavioral measures (e.g. comprehension response times and production
latencies) and physiological measures (e.g. event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and eyemovements).” (Clahsen 2008, p. 3)
Neuroimaging
EEG (Electroencephalography) – monitors different parts of the brain for local electrical
activity.
Advantages – avasive (external)
Disadvantages: shallow and imprecise – records a large number of brain activities.
ERP (event related potentials) – computerized comparison between the random
background ‘noise’ of the EEG and the voltage fluctuation which follows the stimulus.
For example, it can record a surprise effect (N400 – negative spike 400 msc after the
onset of the word)
1 - The boy ate Pizza
2 - The boy ate pajamas
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Priming-N400-Graph.png)
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Online methods
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Neville, H., J. L. Nicol, A Brass, K. I. Forster and M. F, Garrett. 1991. Syntactically
based sentence processing classes: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Journal
of Cognitive Neuroscience 3.2: 151-165
a. The scientist criticized Max’s proof of the theorem
The scientist criticized Max’s event of the theorem
b. The scientist criticized a proof of the theorem
The scientist criticized Max of proof the theorem
c. The scientist criticized Max’s proof of the theorem
What did the scientist criticize [Max’s proof of--]?
d. Was proof of the theorem criticized by the scientist?
What was [proof of --] criticized by the scientist?
Figures 1(a-d)
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Online methods
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
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Online methods
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
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Online methods
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
CAT (Computerized Axial Tomography) - inspection of the living brain (a series of brain
slices) of people who suffer some neurological disorder (tumor, lesion).
Advantages: three-dimensional information that helps in identification for treatment
Disadvantages: Static rather than dynamic picture
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Online methods
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
PET (Positron Emission Tomography) – mapping areas of high brain activity (blood
flow) which are related to particular cognitive tasks
Advantages: dynamic view of the normal brain in action
Disadvantages: invasive
‫אזור ברוקה‬
‫אזור ורניקה‬
‫קורטקס שמיעתי‬
‫שמיעת מילים‬
‫אזור ברוקה‬
‫תנועות הפה‬
‫השמעת מילים‬
MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) - A strong magnetic field is created flooding the
brain with radio waves. Radio waves are absorbed by hydrogen yielding a three
dimensional picture which shows fine distinctions between different tissues.
fMRI (Functional MRI) - since MRI is highly sensitive of blood flow, by a computerized
comparison between the blood flow at rest and blood flow during activity we can detect
where the activity takes place
TMS (Transcranial magnetic stimulation) - It uses a powerful electromagnet discharge to
alter brain activity. This tool can be used to induce temporal brain damage in a normal
brain and gain many insights into the physiology of the brain.
Eye tracking
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Linguistic abilities are assessed by tracking and recording eye movements in
response to predetermined verbal and visual stimuli
Eye-tracking in language processing studies allows researchers to track and record
participants' eye movements when they:
o Read a sentence
o Look at the pictures on the computer screen as they listen to sentences that
describe these pictures
Experimental eye tracking data is obtained to investigate:
 understanding of spoken language
 cognitive processes related to spoken language
 ability to process and interpret metaphor and figurative language
 body language and lip reading
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Online methods
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
 turn taking in conversations
 audio-visual integration
 reading behavior
 tracking-task performance
 scene exploration strategies
(http://www.tobii.com/eye-tracking-research/global/research/linguistics/)
Preferential looking, Head-turn method
Children (and adults) tend to look at pictures corresponding to a sentence they hear. This
can be used to test word comprehension as well as sentence comprehension
She is kissing the key/ball
The girl/boy is waving
Garden-Path sentences
1.
2.
3.
4.
Since Jay always walks a mile seems like a short distance to him.
The horse raced past the barn fell
As the woman edited the magazine about fishing amused all the reporters
As the woman sailed the magazine about fishing amused all the reporters
“A regression is any eye movement that begins at the right-most point the reader has
fixated and leaves the currently fixated region to the left. This definition is therefore only
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Online methods
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
concerned with disruption occurring during initial processing. First-pass time is the sum
of the fixations occurring within a region before the first fixation outside the region. If the
eye fixates a point beyond the end of a region before fixating the region for the first time,
then the first-pass time for that region is zero. (This measure is equivalent to the gazeduration measure [e.g., Rayner & Duffy, 1986], when the region is a single word.) Total
time is the sum of all fixaions in a region” (Pickering & Traxler, 1998)
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“The regressions and total-time data demonstrate that:
o readers misanalysed both types of ambiguous sentence
o sentences with implausible object analyses were harder to process during
the critical noun phrase
o sentences with plausible object analyses were harder to process during the
syntactically disambiguating verb phrase.
The regressions data demonstrate further that readers incrementally interpreted
the sentences, because plausibility effects emerged before the point of syntactic
disambiguation.
Readers must have initially treated the magazine about fishing as the object of the
subordinate verb (with magazine as the head noun).”
Behavioral methods
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Reaction time (children are usually slower than adults)
Lexical decision task (priming)
Cross-Modal Priming
Monitoring task (self paced reading/listening)
Word monitoring Tasks (Tyler & Marslen-Wilson, 1981)
Monitoring for the word hand in auditory stimulus.
a. John had to go back home. He had fallen out of the swing and had hurt his hand on the
ground.
b. John had to sit on the shop. He had lived out of the kitchen and had enjoyed his hand
in the mud
c. The on sit top to had John. He lived had and kitchen the out his of had enjoyed hand
mud in the
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Participants – 5, 7,10 and adults
Reaction time was measured
Findings – all showed the same gradation
The gap was smaller for 5s – limited processing
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Online methods
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Priming tasks - Lexical decision task
“The cortical representations of the prime and target are interconnected or overlap in
some way such that activating the representation of the prime automatically activates
the representation of the target word.”
(Forster 1999, p. 6)
Morphological decomposition & Semantic transparency (Marslen-Wilson et al 1994)

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Government – govern
Apartment – apart
Government facilitates its base govern
Apartment does not facilitate its etymological base apart
Cross-Modal Priming - Auditory prime, visual target
Phonological priming (Marslen-Wilson & Zwiserlood 1985)
Coreference (McKee, Nicol & McDaniel, 1993) - alive or not alive?
The reindeer knows that the alligator with gigantic teeth is looking at himself /him
ALLIGATOR/REINDEER in an old shiny mirror.
Traces in relative clauses (Roberts et al 2007 from Clahsen 2008) - The effect of memory
span
John saw the peacock to which the small penguin gave the nice birthday present __ in the
garden last weekend. (PEACOCK, CARROT)
High memory span – shorted RT to identical target in the gap position
Low memory span – no antecedent reactivation, but no difference in comprehension
Monitoring task (self paced reading/listening)
Participants listen and press a button for the next word/phrase. RT is measured as well as
comprehension/judgment at the end.
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Online methods
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Online processing of clitic pronouns in Greek
Chondrogianni, V., Marinis, T. & Edwards, S. (2010) Production and processing of
articles and clitic pronouns by Greek children with SLI. In Proceeding of 34th Annual
Boston University Conference on Language Development, Cascadilla Press, 78-89
The lion wanted to eat the deer
The deer / got really scared / when / the lion / *(it) bit / in the jungle / on the rock.
Tense agreement in English (Chondrogianni, V. & Marinis, T. Cost meeting, Cyprus,
2010)
a. Mary is a great baker. Every weekend / Mary / buys / flour / and / she / bakes /cakes /
for the whole family
b. Mary is a great baker. Every weekend / Mary / buys / flour / and / she / bake /cakes /
for the whole family
Taxler 2005 (from Clahsen 2008)
When Sue tripped the girl fell over and the vase was broken
When Sue tripped the table fell over and the vase was broken
When Sue fell the policeman stopped and helped her up
Advantages (Chondrogianni, V. & Marinis, T. Cost meeting, Cyprus, 2010):
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Processing of words/phrases in milliseconds.
No time to think about the sentences.
Insight into implicit processes.
RTs for each word/phrase within a sentence.
Independent from educational level & reading skills (age & socio-economic
status).
Disadvantages (Chondrogianni, V. & Marinis, T. Cost meeting, Cyprus, 2010):
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Speed of pressing the button.
Large number of sentences, length of experimental session.
Flat intonation or natural intonation - this is not how we listen to sentences.
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