Individual Differences in Language Comprehension, 2020-2025

All data and analysis code produced as part of this ESRC funded project has been made fully accessible on the Open Science Foundation website. 1) Learning about the meanings of ambiguous words: Single word-meaning priming experiment (N = 51) where primes are 3-sentence narratives showing that listeners reliably disambiguate spoken ambiguous words on the basis of cues from wider narrative contexts, and retain information about the outcome of these disambiguation processes to inform subsequent encounters of the same word form. 2) Studying Individual Differences in Language Comprehension: A single ambiguity resolution experiment that illustrates the steps that researchers can take to address the challenges associated with devising experimental tasks to measure language comprehension skills. 3) English Vocabulary Test: The Web-based Open-access Reliable Decision on Synonyms (WORDS): Newly developed 30-item Web-based Open-access Reliable Decision on Synonyms (WORDS) English Vocabulary Test (Reliability: Cronbach’s α = 0.82). The test takes on average 4 minutes to complete. It can be freely accessed via Gorilla Open Materials . 4) Diversity of narrative context disrupts the early stage of learning the meanings of novel words: Diversity of narrative context disrupts the early stage of learning the meanings of novel words Single experiment in which adults (N = 100) learned invented meanings for eight pseudowords, either within a single coherent narrative context or five different narrative contexts. Diversity of narrative context did not affect word-form learning, but more semantic features were correctly recalled for words trained in a single context.<p>The ability to communicate using spoken language is a core human ability. Language provides the foundation for social and educational development and without strong language skills, people struggle to participate positively in society. Spoken language allows us to rapidly transfer ideas from the mind of the speaker to the mind of the listener. This transfer relies on the ability of the listener to quickly access the meaning of each word that they hear: they must make 'best guesses' about the intended meaning of each word. The ability to rapidly and accurately understand the meanings of spoken words is vital, not only for communication using spoken language, but also to provide the foundation for skilled reading comprehension. Accessing the meanings of words is made more difficult by the presence of 'lexical ambiguity': words that can refer to more than one concept. For example, when accessing the sentence "What an enormous trunk!" the listener must work out whether the speaker was referring to an elephant's nose, a large suitcase, a car's boot, or the main stem of a tree. The ability to accurately and rapidly disambiguate word meanings is vital for communication: approximately 80% of common words in English have multiple dictionary definitions. Take for example the first sentence of the text given to 11-year-old children across England as part of the national curriculum tests: "Dawn was casting spun-gold threads across a rosy sky over Sawubona game reserve". The words in this sentence have on average 8.8 dictionary definitions: children must, for example, work out that "Dawn" does not refer to a girl's name and that "game" does not refer to a competitive sport. In addition, "cast" and "threads" do not refer to physical actions or objects, but have more metaphorical interpretations. While many of us are able to accurately disambiguate most words without obvious effort, research has revealed large individual differences in this skill: some people are slower and more error prone and the same people also tend to perform poorly tests of comprehension more generally. This project aims to uncover the causes of these difficulties as a first step to identifying how best to help them in the classroom or clinic. This is important as poor language comprehension is associated with difficulty learning to read, with social and emotional unhappiness and with poor behaviour. The current research will develop novel child-friendly methods for assessing the ability to understand spoken sentences containing ambiguous words. We will use these methods to discover the factors that contribute to individual differences in the ability to understand words. We will test two types of explanation. The first sees linguistic factors as critical - qualitative or quantitative differences in the stored knowledge a person has about word meanings. The second type of explanation is that people differ in how flexible they can be in selecting and switching between alternative meanings, rather than their knowledge of the meanings themselves. We will use computational models and experimental methods to assess how these factors work together to bring about comprehension. Finally, we will move from the laboratory to the classroom to conduct an intervention study in primary age children to assess whether comprehension can be enhanced by playing word games while listening to carefully constructed stories. Answers to these questions are critical for efforts to improve comprehension skills in school aged children. The National Curriculum sees language and communication as essential for educational achievement, and considerable teaching time is devoted to improving performance in national tests. Unfortunately, evidence-based teaching strategies for improving comprehension are not well-developed, certainly in comparison with those in place for word reading. This research will provide the theoretical framework and empirical basis for larger scale interventions.</p>本由英国经济与社会研究理事会（Economic and Social Research Council, ESRC）资助的项目所产生的全部数据与分析代码，已完整公开至开放科学框架（Open Science Framework, OSF）网站。 1) 歧义词义习得：单词语义启动实验（被试量N=51）。实验中启动项为3段叙事文本，用于证明听者可依托宽泛叙事语境的线索，可靠地对口语歧义词义进行消解，并留存该消解过程的结果信息，以指导后续对同形词的识别。 2) 语言理解的个体差异研究：一项歧义消解实验，该实验展示了研究者可采用何种步骤应对设计语言理解能力测量实验任务时面临的各类挑战。 3) 英语词汇测试：基于网页的开放可靠同义词判断测试（Web-based Open-access Reliable Decision on Synonyms, WORDS）：新研发的30题版基于网页的开放可靠同义词判断英语词汇测试（信度：克龙巴赫α系数=0.82）。该测试平均耗时4分钟即可完成，可通过Gorilla开放材料平台（Gorilla Open Materials）免费获取使用。 4) 叙事语境多样性会干扰新词语义习得的早期阶段：一项单实验研究，该实验中成人被试（N=100）分别在单一连贯叙事语境或5种不同叙事语境下，学习8个假词（pseudowords）的衍生词义。结果显示，叙事语境多样性并未影响词形学习，但在单一语境下训练的词项，其语义特征的正确回忆率更高。 借助口语进行交流是人类的核心能力之一。语言为社会与教育发展奠定了基础，若缺乏扎实的语言技能，个体便难以积极融入社会。口语能够让我们快速将说话者脑中的想法传递至听者脑中，这一传递过程依赖于听者快速提取所听到的每个词语义的能力：听者必须对每个词语的意图义做出“最优猜测”。快速且准确地理解口语词义的能力至关重要，这不仅是口语交流的基础，更为熟练的阅读理解能力提供了核心支撑。 词汇歧义（lexical ambiguity）的存在会加大词义提取的难度——即同一个词可指代多种概念。例如，当听到“多么巨大的树干啊！”这句话时，听者需要判断说话者所指的是大象的鼻子、大型行李箱、汽车后备箱，还是树木的主干。 准确且快速地消解词义歧义对交流而言至关重要：英语中约80%的常用词都拥有多个词典释义。以英国全国课程测试中提供给11岁儿童的文本首句为例：“Dawn将纺金丝线洒落在萨武博纳野生动物保护区的玫瑰色天空之上”。该句中的词语平均拥有8.8个词典释义：儿童需要明确，例如“Dawn”并非指女孩名，“game”并非指竞技体育运动；此外，“cast”与“threads”也并非指代实体动作或物体，而是具有更具隐喻性的解读方式。 尽管多数人可以毫不费力地准确消解绝大多数词语的歧义，但研究显示，该技能存在显著的个体差异：部分人群的歧义消解速度更慢、出错率更高，且这类人群通常在各类理解类测试中表现普遍欠佳。本项目旨在揭示这些困难的成因，以此作为探索如何在课堂或临床场景中为相关人群提供有效帮助的第一步。语言理解能力薄弱与阅读学习困难、社交及情绪困扰、行为问题均存在关联，因此该研究具有重要意义。 当前研究将开发适用于儿童的新型友好型评估方法，用于检测个体理解含歧义词语的口语句子的能力。我们将借助这些方法，探究影响语言理解能力个体差异的各类因素。本研究将对两类解释框架进行检验：第一类将语言因素视为关键——即个体在词语义存储知识上存在质或量的差异；第二类解释框架则认为，个体间的差异体现在选择与切换备选词义的灵活性之上，而非其对词义本身的掌握程度。我们将结合计算模型与实验方法，评估这些因素如何共同作用以实现语言理解。最后，我们将从实验室延伸至课堂，针对小学年龄段儿童开展干预研究，以评估通过聆听精心构建的故事并参与词语游戏，是否能够提升个体的语言理解能力。 上述问题的解答，对于改善学龄儿童的理解能力具有关键意义。英国国家课程将语言与交流能力视为教育成就的核心要素，且大量教学时间都投入于提升学生在国家测试中的表现。遗憾的是，目前尚无完善的循证教学策略用于提升理解能力，相较于针对单词阅读的相关策略而言尤为如此。本研究将为大规模干预研究提供理论框架与实证基础。