Published in: Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 10, Issue 1, 144-160 Abstract “Cognitive architectures have often been applied to data from individual experiments. In this paper, I develop an ACT‐R reader that can model a much larger set of data, eye‐tracking corpus data. It is shown that the resulting model has a good fit to the data for the considered low‐level processes. Unlike previous related works (most prominently, Engelmann, Vasishth, Engbert & Kliegl, 2013 ), the model achieves the fit by estimating free parameters of ACT‐R using Bayesian estimation and Markov‐Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques, rather than by relying on the mix of… Read More
Performance in a Collaborative Search Task: The Role of Feedback and Alignment
Published in: Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 10, Issue 1, 55-79 Abstract “When people communicate, they coordinate a wide range of linguistic and non‐linguistic behaviors. This process of coordination is called alignment, and it is assumed to be fundamental to successful communication. In this paper, we question this assumption and investigate whether disalignment is a more successful strategy in some cases. More specifically, we hypothesize that alignment correlates with task success only when communication is interactive. We present results from a spot‐the‐difference task in which dyads of interlocutors have to decide whether they are viewing the same scene or not. Interactivity… Read More
The role of working memory in processing L2 input: Insights from eye-tracking
Published in: Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Volume 21, Issue 2, 355-374 Abstract “Our study investigated how attention paid to a target syntactic construction causative had is related to the storage capacity and attention regulation function of working memory (WM) and how these WM abilities moderate the change of knowledge of the target construction in different input conditions. 80 Sri Lankan learners of English were exposed to examples of the target construction in explicit and implicit learning conditions and their eye movements were tracked as they read the input. Correlational and multiple regression analyses indicated a very strong relationship between WM abilities and gains… Read More
A cognitive load delays predictive eye movements similarly during L1 and L2 comprehension
Published in: Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Volume 21, Issue 2, 251-264 Abstract “We used the visual world eye-tracking paradigm to investigate the effects of cognitive load on predictive eye movements in L1 (Experiment 1) and L2 (Experiment 2) speakers. Participants listened to sentences whose verb was predictive or non-predictive towards one of four objects they were viewing. They then clicked on a mentioned object. Half the participants additionally performed a working memory task of remembering words. Both L1 and L2 speakers looked more at the target object predictively in predictable- than in non-predictable sentences when they performed the listen-and-click task only.… Read More