The Effect of Focus on Memory for Words in Sentences

Birch, Stacy; Garnsey, Susan M.

doi:10.1006/jmla.1995.1011

Cited by 165 publications

(141 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

125

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…"It was Moses who …"), that statements with the incorrect information in focus (through the cleft construction) more often led to detection of inconsistencies than when the incorrect information was not focused. Other studies on written sentences revealed that focused information is memorised better (Birch & Garnsey, 1995;Osaka, Nishizaki, Komori, & Osaka, 2002). An eye-tracking study found that focused words have longer reading times than defocused words, indicating that readers pay more attention to focused information (Birch & Rayner, 1997).…”

Section: Focus Structure In Language Processingmentioning

confidence: 96%

Focus in Dutch reading: an eye-tracking experiment with heritage speakers of Turkish

Rijswijk

Muntendam

Dijkstra

2017

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study examines whether heritage speakers of Turkish in the Netherlands interpret focus in written Dutch sentences differently from L1 speakers of Dutch (controls). Where most previous studies examined effects from the dominant L2 on the heritage language, we investigated whether there are effects from the weaker heritage language on the dominant L2. Dutch and Turkish differ in focus marking. Dutch primarily uses prosody to encode focus, whereas Turkish uses prosody and syntax, with a preverbal area for focused information and a postverbal area for background information. In written sentences no explicit prosody is available, which possibly enhances the role of syntactic cues in interpreting focus. An eye-tracking experiment suggests that, unlike the controls, the bilinguals associate the preverbal area with focus and the postverbal area with background information. These findings are in line with transfer from the weaker L1 to the dominant L2 at the syntax-discourse interface.ARTICLE HISTORY

show abstract

Section: Focus Structure In Language Processingmentioning

confidence: 96%

Focus in Dutch reading: an eye-tracking experiment with heritage speakers of Turkish

Rijswijk

Muntendam

Dijkstra

2017

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In summary, although there has been evidence that focus enhances both memory representations (Birch & Garnsey, 1995) and the level of detail with which word meanings are represented (Sturt et al, 2004), it is currently unclear how these benefits relate to online reading behavior. In the present study, we used Sturt et al's text change detection task, but we also recorded eye movements during reading.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Bredart and Modolo (1988) showed that people are much more likely to notice the anomaly when Moses is focused by means of a cleft construction, as in It was Moses who put two of each kind of animal onto the ark. Moreover, Gergely (1992) found that focusing relevant information facilitates inference, and Birch and Garnsey's (1995) experiments on focus and memory demonstrated a strong impact of linguistic focus on the memory representations for sentences, showing that target words identical to previously focused words were facilitated in a recognition task both with and without a delay. Sturt, Sanford, Stewart, and Dawydiak (2004) used a new technique to further investigate the effects of focus on memory.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic focus and memory: An eye movement study

Ward

Sturt

2007

Memory & Cognition

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We report an eyetracking study investigating the effects of linguistic focus on eye movements and memory during two readings of a text. Across two presentations of the text, a critical word either changed to a semantically related word or remained unchanged. Focus on the critical word was manipulated using context. Eye movements were monitored during reading, and there was a secondary task of detecting the word change. Results indicated that when a word changed, participants were more successful at detecting it when it was in focus. In the second display, there were more fixations and longer viewing times on a changed than on an unchanged word, but only when the critical word was in focus; eye movement data for changed and unchanged words did not differ when the word was not in focus. We suggest that linguistic focus leads to more detailed lexical semantic representations but not more effortful initial encoding of information. Memory & Cognition 2007, 35 (1), 73-86 P. Ward, peter@psy.gla.ac.uk

show abstract

“…It also plays a crucial role in spoken discourse processing in communication. As a first approximation, listeners consider a sentence appropriate when new information is accented and old information is unaccented (Birch and Garnsey 1995;reported in Li, Hagoort, and Yang 2008). Appropriate accentuation speeds up sentence processing by listeners when processing discourse (Cutler 1976;Bock and Mazzella 1983;Terken and Nooteboom 1987;van Donselaar and Lentz 1994;reported in Li, Hagoort, and Yang 2008).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of prosody awareness training on the performance of consecutive interpretation by Farsi-English interpreter trainees: an experimental study

Yenkimaleki

Heuven

2016

Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigates the effect of prosody awareness training on the performance of Farsi-English interpreter trainees. Two groups of student interpreters were formed. All were native speakers of Farsi who studied English translation and interpreting at the BA level at the State University of Arak, Iran. Participants were assigned to groups at random, but with equal division between genders (8 female and 8 male students in each group). At the beginning of the program, all the participants took a pretest of general English proficiency. No significant differences in English language skills (TOEFL scores) could be established between the groups. Three expert raters assessed quality measures of interpreting performance in both a pretest and a post-test. All rating scales that pertain to prosodic aspects in the trainees' interpreting performance, proved susceptible to the explicit teaching of prosody. The results of the study showed that explicit teaching of prosody statistically did have a positive effect on the overall interpreting performance by Farsi-English interpreter trainees. The pedagogical implications of the present study would pertain to interpreting programs all over the world. Course developers should take these results into considerations and include contrastive prosody in the textbooks for interpreting programs.

show abstract

The Effect of Focus on Memory for Words in Sentences

Cited by 165 publications

References 0 publications

Focus in Dutch reading: an eye-tracking experiment with heritage speakers of Turkish

Focus in Dutch reading: an eye-tracking experiment with heritage speakers of Turkish

Linguistic focus and memory: An eye movement study

The effect of prosody awareness training on the performance of consecutive interpretation by Farsi-English interpreter trainees: an experimental study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About