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Facilitating the task for second language processing research: A comparison of two testing paradigms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2013

A. KATE MILLER
A. KATE MILLER*
Affiliation:
Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Kate Miller, Department of World Languages and Cultures, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, 539E Cavanaugh Hall, 425 University Boulevard, Indianapolis, IN 46202. E-mail: am27@iupui.edu
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Abstract

This study considers the effects of experimental task demands in research on second language sentence processing. Advanced learners and native speakers of French were presented with the same experimental sentences in two different tasks designed to probe for evidence of trace reactivation during processing: cross-modal priming (Nicol & Swinney, 1989) and probe classification during reading (Dekydtspotter, Miller, Schaefer, Chang, & Kim, 2010). Although the second language learners produced nontargetlike results on the cross-modal priming task, the probe classification during reading task revealed results suggestive of trace reactivation, which point to detailed structural representations during online sentence processing. The implications for current theories of second language sentence processing and for future research in this domain are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , May 2015 , pp. 613 - 637
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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