Datasets:
HHazard
/
continuous-learning

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
Community
1
text
stringlengths
13
991
Difficulty with decoding is marked by having not acquired the phoneme-grapheme mapping concept. One specific disability characterized by poor decoding is dyslexia, defined as brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a person's ability to read. These individuals typically read at levels significantly lower than expected despite having normal intelligence. It can also be inherited in some families, and recent studies have identified a number of genes that may predispose an individual to developing dyslexia. Although the symptoms vary from person to person, common characteristics among people with dyslexia are difficulty with spelling, phonological processing (the manipulation of sounds), and/or rapid visual-verbal responding. Adults can have either developmental dyslexia or acquired dyslexia which occurs after a brain injury, stroke or dementia.
Individuals with reading rate difficulties tend to have accurate word recognition and normal comprehension abilities, but their reading speed is below grade level. Strategies such as guided reading (guided, repeated oral-reading instruction), may help improve a reader's reading rate.
Many studies show that increasing reading speed improves comprehension. Reading speed requires a long time to reach adult levels. According to Carver (1990), children's reading speed increases throughout the school years. On average, from grade 2 to college, reading rate increases 14 standard-length words per minute each year (where one standard-length word is defined as six characters in text, including punctuation and spaces).
Scientific studies have demonstrated that speed reading — defined here as capturing and decoding words faster than 900 wpm — is not feasible given the limits set by the anatomy of the eye.
Individuals with reading fluency difficulties fail to maintain a fluid, smooth pace when reading. Strategies used for overcoming reading rate difficulties are also useful in addressing reading fluency issues.
Individuals with reading comprehension difficulties are commonly described as poor comprehenders. They have normal decoding skills as well as a fluid rate of reading, but have difficulty comprehending text when reading. The simple view of reading holds that reading comprehension requires both "decoding skills" and "oral language comprehension" ability.
Increasing vocabulary knowledge, listening skills and teaching basic comprehension techniques may help facilitate better reading comprehension. It is suggested that students receive brief, explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies in the areas of vocabulary, noticing understanding, and connecting ideas.
Scarborough's Reading Rope also outlines some of the essential ingredients of reading comprehension.
The following organizations measure and report on reading achievement in the United States and internationally:
In the United States, the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP ("The Nation's Report Card") is the national assessment of what students know and can do in various subjects. Four of these subjects – reading, writing, mathematics and science – are assessed most frequently and reported at the state and district level, usually for grades 4 and 8.
In 2019, with respect to the reading skills of the nation's grade-four public school students, 34% performed at or above the NAEP "Proficient level" (solid academic performance) and 65% performed at or above the NAEP "Basic level" (partial mastery of the proficient level skills). The results by race / ethnicity were as follows:
NAEP reading assessment results are reported as average scores on a 0–500 scale. The Basic Level is 208 and the Proficient Level is 238. The average reading score for grade-four public school students was 219. Female students had an average score that was 7 points higher than male students. Students who were eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) had an average score that was 28 points lower than that for students who were not eligible.
Reading scores for the individual States and Districts are available on the NAEP site. Between 2017 and 2019 Mississippi was the only State that had a grade-four reading score increase and 17 States had a score decrease.
The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is an international study of reading (comprehension) achievement in fourth graders. It is designed to measure children's reading literacy achievement, to provide a baseline for future studies of trends in achievement, and to gather information about children's home and school experiences in learning to read. The 2016 PIRLS report shows the 4th grade reading achievement by country in two categories (literary and informational). The ten countries with the highest overall reading average are the Russian Federation, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Ireland, Finland, Poland, Northern Ireland, Norway, Chinese Taipei and England (UK). Some others are: the United States 15th, Australia 21st, Canada 23rd, and New Zealand 33rd.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) measures 15-year-old school pupils scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading. In 2018, of the 79 participating countries/economies, on average, students in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang (China) and Singapore outperformed students from all other countries in reading, mathematics and science. 21 countries have reading scores above the OECD average scores and many of the scores are not statistically different.
The history of reading dates back to the invention of writing during the 4th millennium BC. Although reading print text is now an important way for the general population to access information, this has not always been the case. With some exceptions, only a small percentage of the population in many countries was considered literate before the Industrial Revolution. Some of the pre-modern societies with generally high literacy rates included classical Athens and the Islamic Caliphate.
Scholars assume that reading aloud (Latin "clare legere") was the more common practice in antiquity, and that reading silently ("legere tacite" or "legere sibi") was unusual. In his "Confessions", Saint Augustine remarks on Saint Ambrose's unusual habit of reading silently in the 4th century AD.
In 18th-century Europe, the then new practice of reading alone in bed was, for a time, considered dangerous and immoral. As reading became less a communal, oral practice, and more a private, silent one—and as sleeping increasingly moved from communal sleeping areas to individual bedrooms, some raised concern that reading in bed presented various dangers, such as fires caused by bedside candles. Some modern critics, however, speculate that these concerns were based on the fear that readers—especially women—could escape familial and communal obligations and transgress moral boundaries through the private fantasy worlds in books.
In 19th century Russia, reading practices were highly varied, as people from a wide range of social statuses read Russian and foreign-language texts ranging from high literature to the peasant lubok. Provincial readers such as Andrei Chikhachev give evidence of the omnivorous appetite for fiction and non-fiction alike among middling landowners.
The history of learning to read dates back to the invention of writing during the 4th millennium BC.
With respect to the English language in the United States, the phonics principle of teaching reading was first presented by John Hart in 1570, who suggested the teaching of reading should focus on the relationship between what is now referred to as graphemes (letters) and phonemes (sounds).
In the colonial times of the USA, reading material was not written specifically for children, so instruction material consisted primarily of the Bible and some patriotic essays. The most influential early textbook was The New England Primer, published in 1687. There was little consideration given to the best ways to teach reading or assess reading comprehension.
Phonics was a popular way to learn reading in the 1800s. William Holmes McGuffey (1800–1873), an American educator, author, and Presbyterian minister who had a lifelong interest in teaching children, compiled the first four of the McGuffey Readers in 1836.
The whole-word method was invented by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, the director of the American Asylum at Hartford. It was designed to educate deaf people by placing a word alongside a picture. In 1830, Gallaudet described his method of teaching children to recognize a total of 50 sight words written on cards. Horace Mann, the Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts, USA, favored the method for everyone, and by 1837 the method was adopted by the Boston Primary School Committee.
By 1844 the defects of the whole-word method became so apparent to Boston schoolmasters that they urged the Board to return to phonics. In 1929, Samuel Orton, a neuropathologist in Iowa, concluded that the cause of children's reading problems was the new sight method of reading. His findings were published in the February 1929 issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology in the article "The Sight Reading Method of Teaching Reading as a Source of Reading Disability".
The meaning-based curriculum came to dominate reading instruction by the second quarter of the 20th century. In the 1930s and 1940s, reading programs became very focused on comprehension and taught children to read whole words by sight. Phonics was taught as a last resort.
Edward William Dolch developed his list of sight words in 1936 by studying the most frequently occurring words in children's books of that era. Children are encouraged to memorize the words with the idea that it will help them read more fluently. Many teachers continue to use this list, although some researchers consider the theory of sight word reading to be a "myth". Researchers and literacy organizations suggest it would be more effective if students learned the words using a phonics approach.
In 1955, Rudolf Flesch published a book entitled "Why Johnny Can't Read", a passionate argument in favor of teaching children to read using phonics, adding to the reading debate among educators, researchers, and parents.
Government-funded research on reading instruction in the United States and elsewhere began in the 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers began publishing studies with evidence on the effectiveness of different instructional approaches. During this time, researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted studies that showed early reading acquisition depends on the understanding of the connection between sounds and letters (i.e. phonics). However, this appears to have had little effect on educational practices in public schools.
In the 1970s, the whole language method was introduced. This method de-emphasizes the teaching of phonics out of context (e.g. reading books), and is intended to help readers "guess" the right word. It teaches that guessing individual words should involve three systems (letter clues, meaning clues from context, and the syntactical structure of the sentence). It became the primary method of reading instruction in the 1980s and 1990s. However, it is falling out of favor. The neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg refers to it as a "theoretical zombie" because it persists in spite of a lack of supporting evidence. It is still widely practiced in related methods such as sight words, the three-cueing system and balanced literacy.
In the 1980s the three-cueing system (the searchlights model in England) emerged. According to a 2010 survey 75% of teachers in the USA teach the three-cueing system. It teaches children to guess a word by using "meaning cues" (semantic, syntactic and graphophonic). While the system does help students to "make better guesses", it does not help when the words become more sophisticated; and it reduces the amount of practice time available to learn essential decoding skills. Consequently, present-day researchers such as cognitive neuroscientists Mark Seidenberg and professor Timothy Shanahan do not support the theory. In England, synthetic phonics is intended to replace "the searchlights multi-cueing model".
In the 1990s Balanced literacy arose. It is a theory of teaching reading and writing that is not clearly defined. It may include elements such as word study and phonics mini-lessons, differentiated learning, cueing, leveled reading, shared reading, guided reading, independent reading and sight words. For some, balanced literacy strikes a balance between whole language and phonics. Others say balanced literacy in practice usually means the "whole language" approach to reading. According to a survey in 2010, 68% of K-2 teachers in the USA practice balanced literacy. Furthermore, only 52% of teachers included "phonics" in their definition of "balanced literacy".
In 1996 the California Department of Education took an increased interest in using phonics in schools. And in 1997 the department called for grade one teaching in concepts about print, phonemic awareness, decoding and word recognition, and vocabulary and concept development.
By 1998 in the U.K. whole language instruction and the searchlights-model were still the norm, however there was some attention to teaching phonics in the early grades, as seen in the National Literacy Strategies.
Beginning in 2000, several reading research reports were published:
In Australia the 2005 report, "Teaching Reading", recommends teaching reading based on evidence and teaching systematic, explicit phonics within an integrated approach. The executive summary says "systematic phonics instruction is critical if children are to be taught to read well, whether or not they experience reading difficulties." As of October 5, 2018, The State Government of Victoria, Australia, publishes a website containing a comprehensive Literacy Teaching Toolkit including effective reading instruction, phonics, and sample phonics lessons.
Until 2006, the English language syllabus of Singapore advocated "a balance between decoding and meaning-based instruction … phonics and whole language". However, a review in 2006 advocated for a "systematic" approach. Subsequently, the syllabus in 2010 had no mention of whole language and advocated for a balance between "systematic and explicit instruction" and "a rich language environment". It called for increased instruction in oral language skills together with phonemic awareness and the key decoding elements of synthetic phonics, analytic phonics and analogy phonics.
In 2007 the Department of Education (DE) in Northern Ireland was required by law to teach children foundational skills in phonological awareness and the understanding that "words are made up of sounds and syllables and that sounds are represented by letters (phoneme/grapheme awareness)". In 2010 the DE required that teachers receive support in using evidence-based practices to teach literacy and numeracy, including: a "systematic programme of high-quality phonics" that is explicit, structured, well-paced, interactive, engaging, and applied in a meaningful context.
In 2008, the National Center for Family Literacy, with the "National Institute for Literacy", published a report entitled "Developing Early Literacy". It is a synthesis of the scientific research on the development of early literacy skills in children ages zero to five as determined by the "National Early Literacy Panel" that was convened in 2002. Amongst other things, the report concluded that code-focused interventions on the early literacy and conventional literacy skills of young children yield a moderate to large effect on the predictors of later reading and writing, irrespective of socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or population density.
In 2010 the Common Core State Standards Initiative was introduced in the USA. The "English Language Arts Standards for Reading: Foundational Skills in Grades 1–5" include recommendations to teach print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, and fluency.
In the United Kingdom a 2010 government white paper contained plans to train all primary school teachers in phonics. The 2013 curriculum has "statutory requirements" that, amongst other things, students in years one and two be capable in using systematic synthetic phonics in regards to word reading, reading comprehension, fluency, and writing. This includes having skills in "sound to graphemes", "decoding", and "blending".
In 2013, the National Commission for UNESCO launched the "Leading for Literacy" project to develop the literacy skills of grades 1 and 2 students. The project facilitates the training of primary school teachers in the use of a "synthetic phonics" program. From 2013 to 2015, the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Education appointed seven reading specialist to help primary and secondary school teachers improve their literacy instruction. From February 2014 to January 2016, literacy coaches were hired in selected primary schools to assist teachers of kindergarten, grades 1 and 2 with pedagogy and content of early literacy instruction. Primary schools have been provided with literacy resources for instruction, including phonemic awareness, word recognition, vocabulary manipulatives, phonics and comprehension.
In 2013 the State of Mississippi passed the Literacy-Based Promotion Act. The Mississippi Department of Education provided resources for teachers in the areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and reading strategies.
The school curriculum in Ireland focuses on ensuring children are literate in both the English language and the Irish language. The 2014 teachers' Professional Development guide covers the seven areas of attitude and motivation, fluency, comprehension, word identification, vocabulary, phonological awareness, phonics, and assessment. It recommends that phonics be taught in a systematic and structured way and is preceded by training in phonological awareness.
In 2014 the California Department of Education said children should know how to decode regularly spelled one-syllable words by mid-first grade, and be phonemically aware (especially able to segment and blend phonemes)". In grades two and three children receive explicit instruction in advanced phonic-analysis and reading multi-syllabic and more complex words.
In 2015 the New York State Public School system revised its English Language Arts learning standards, calling for teaching involving "reading or literacy experiences" as well as phonemic awareness from prekindergarten to grade 1 and phonics and word recognition for grades 1–4. That same year, the Ohio Legislature set minimum standards requiring the use of phonics including guidelines for teaching phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
In 2016 the What Works Clearinghouse and the Institute of Education Sciences published an Educator's Practice Guide on Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade. It contains four recommendations to support reading: 1) teach students academic language skills, including the use of inferential and narrative language, and vocabulary knowledge, 2) develop awareness of the segments of sounds in speech and how they link to letters (phonemic awareness and phonics), 3) teach students to decode words, analyze word parts, and write and recognize words (phonics and synthetic phonics), and 4) ensure that each student reads connected text every day to support reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.
In 2016 the Colorado Department of Education updated their "Elementary Teacher Literacy Standards" with standards for development in the areas of phonology, phonics and word recognition, fluent automatic reading, vocabulary, text comprehension, handwriting, spelling, and written expression.
The European Literacy Policy Network (ELINET) 2016 reports that Hungarian children in grades one and two receive explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics "as the route to decode words". In grades three and four they continue to apply their knowledge of phonics, however the emphasis shifts to the more meaning-focused technical aspects of reading and writing (i.e., vocabulary, types of texts, reading strategies, spelling, punctuation and grammar).
In 2017 the Ohio Department of Education adopted "Reading Standards for Foundational Skills K–12" laying out a systematic approach to teaching "phonological awareness" in kindergarten and grade one, and "grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words" (including fluency and comprehension) in grades 1–5.
In 2018 the Arkansas Department of Education published a report about their new initiative known as R.I.S.E., Reading Initiative for Student Excellence, that was the result of The Right to Read Act, passed in 2017. The first goal of this initiative is to provide educators with the in-depth knowledge and skills of "the science of reading" and evidence-based instructional strategies. This included a focus on research-based instruction on phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension; specifically systematic and explicit instruction.
As of 2018, the Ministry of Education in New Zealand has online information to help teachers to support their students in years 1–3 in relation to sounds, letters, and words. It states that phonics instruction "is not an end in itself" and it is "not" necessary to teach students "every combination of letters and sounds".
In 2018, ScienceDirect published the results of a study of early literacy and numeracy outcomes in developing countries entitled "Identifying the essential ingredients to literacy and numeracy improvement: Teacher professional development and coaching, student textbooks, and structured teachers’ guides". It concluded that "Including teachers’ guides was by far the most cost-effective intervention".
There has been a strong debate in France on the teaching of phonics ("méthode syllabique") versus whole language ("méthode globale"). After the 1990s, supporters of the later started defending a so-called "mixed method" (also known as Balanced literacy) in which approaches from both methods are used. Influential researchers in psycho-pedagogy, cognitive sciences and neurosciences, such as Stanislas Dehaene and have put their heavy scientific weight on the side of phonics. In 2018 the ministry created a science educational council that openly supported phonics. In April 2018, the minister issued a set of four guiding documents for early teaching of reading and mathematics and a booklet detailing phonics recommendations. Some have described his stance as "traditionalist", but he openly declared that the so-called mixed approach is no serious choice.
In 2019 the Minnesota Department of Education introduced standards requiring school districts to "develop a local literacy plan to ensure that all students have achieved early reading proficiency by no later than the end of third grade" in accordance with a Statute of the Minnesota Legislature requiring elementary teachers to be able to implement comprehensive, scientifically based reading and oral language instruction in the five reading areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Also in 2019, 26% of grade 4 students in Louisiana were reading at the "proficiency level" according to the Nation's Report Card, as compared to the National Average of 34%. In March 2019 the Louisiana Department of Education revised their curriculum for K-12 English Language Arts including requirements for instruction in the alphabetic principle, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, fluency and comprehension.
And again in 2019, 30% of grade 4 students in Texas were reading at the "proficiency level" according to the Nation's Report Card. In June of that year the Texas Legislature passed a Bill requiring all kindergarten through grade-three teachers and principals to ""begin" a teacher literacy achievement academy before the 2022–2023 school year". The required content of the academies' training includes the areas of "The Science of Teaching Reading, Oral Language, Phonological Awareness, Decoding (i.e. Phonics), Fluency and Comprehension." The goal is to "increase teacher knowledge and implementation of evidence-based practices to positively impact student literacy achievement".
For more information on reading educational developments, see Phonics practices by country or region.
The cohort model in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics is a model of lexical retrieval first proposed by William Marslen-Wilson in the late 1970s. It attempts to describe how visual or auditory input (i.e., hearing or reading a word) is mapped onto a word in a hearer's lexicon. According to the model, when a person hears speech segments real-time, each speech segment "activates" every word in the lexicon that begins with that segment, and as more segments are added, more words are ruled out, until only one word is left that still matches the input.
The cohort model relies on a number of concepts in the theory of lexical retrieval. The lexicon is the store of words in a person's mind.; it contains a person's vocabulary and is similar to a mental dictionary. A lexical entry is all the information about a word and the lexical storage is the way the items are stored for peak retrieval. Lexical access is the way that an individual accesses the information in the mental lexicon. A word's cohort is composed of all the lexical items that share an initial sequence of phonemes, and is the set of words activated by the initial phonemes of the word.
The cohort model is based on the concept that auditory or visual input to the brain stimulates neurons as it enters the brain, rather than at the end of a word. This fact was demonstrated in the 1980s through experiments with speech shadowing, in which subjects listened to recordings and were instructed to repeat aloud exactly what they heard, as quickly as possible; Marslen-Wilson found that the subjects often started to repeat a word before it had actually finished playing, which suggested that the word in the hearer's lexicon was activated before the entire word had been heard. Findings such as these led Marslen-Wilson to propose the cohort model in 1987.
Since its original proposal, the model has been adjusted to allow for the role that context plays in helping the hearer rule out competitors, and the fact that activation is "tolerant" to minor acoustic mismatches that arise because of coarticulation (a property by which language sounds are slightly changed by the sounds preceding and following them).
Later experiments refined the model. For example, some studies showed that "shadowers" (subjects who listen to auditory stimuli and repeat it as quickly as possible) could not shadow as quickly when words were jumbled up so they didn't mean anything; those results suggested that sentence structure and speech context also contribute to the process of activation and selection.
Research in bilinguals has found that word recognition is influenced by the number of neighbors in both languages.
Linguistic prediction is a phenomenon in psycholinguistics occurring whenever information about a word or other linguistic unit is activated before that unit is actually encountered. Evidence from eyetracking, event-related potentials, and other experimental methods indicates that in addition to integrating each subsequent word into the context formed by previously encountered words, language users may, under certain conditions, try to predict upcoming words.
In particular, prediction seems to occur regularly when the context of a sentence greatly limits the possible words that have not yet been revealed. For instance, a person listening to a sentence like, "In the summer it is hot, and in the winter it is..." would be highly likely to predict the sentence completion "cold" in advance of actually hearing it. A form of prediction is also thought to occur in some types of lexical priming, a phenomenon whereby a word becomes easier to process if it is preceded by a related word. Linguistic prediction is an active area of research in psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience.
In the eyetracking visual world paradigm, experimental subjects listen to a sentence while staring at an array of pictures on a computer monitor. Their eye movements are recorded, allowing the experimenter to understand how language influences eye movements toward pictures related to the content of the sentence. Experiments of this type have shown that while listening to the verb in a sentence, comprehenders anticipatorily move their eyes to the picture of the verb's likely direct object (e.g. "cake" rather than "ball" while hearing, "The boy will eat..."). Subsequent investigations using the same experimental setup showed that the verb's subject can also determine which object comprehenders anticipate (e.g., comprehenders look at the merry-go-round rather than the motorcycle while hearing, "The little girl will ride...").
In short, comprehenders use the information in the sentence context to predict the meanings of upcoming words. In these experiments, comprehenders used the verb and its subject to activate information about the verb's direct object before hearing that word. However, another experiment has shown that in a language with more flexible word order (German), comprehenders can also use context to predict the sentence's subject.
Computational models of eye movements during reading, which model data related to word predictability, include Reichle and colleagues' E-Z Reader model and Engbert and colleagues' SWIFT model.
The M100 discussed here is the magnetic equivalent of the visual N1 potential—an event-related potential linked to visual processing and attention. The M100 was also linked to prediction in language comprehension in a series of event-related magnetoencephalography (MEG) experiments. In these experiments, participants read words whose visual forms were either predictable or unpredictable based on prior linguistic context or based on a recently seen picture. The predictability of the word's visual form (but not the predictability of its meaning) affected the amplitude of the M100.
There is ongoing controversy about whether this M100 effect is related to the early left anterior negativity (eLAN), an event-related potential response to words that is theorized to reflect the brain's assignment of local phrase structure.
The P2 component is generally thought to reflect higher-order perceptual processing and its modulation by attention. However, it has also been linked to prediction of visual word forms. The P2 response to words in highly constraining contexts is often larger than the P2 response to words in less constraining contexts. When experimental participants read words that are presented to the left or right of their visual fixation (stimulating the opposite hemisphere of the brain first), the larger P2 for words in highly constraining contexts is observed only for right visual field presentation (targeting left hemisphere). This is consistent with the PARLO hypothesis that linguistic prediction is mainly a function of the left hemisphere, discussed below.
The N400 is part of the normal ERP response to potentially meaningful stimuli, whose amplitude is inversely correlated with the predictability of a stimuli in a particular context. In sentence processing, the predictability of a word is established by two related factors: 'cloze probability' and 'sentential constraint'. Cloze probability reflects the expectancy of a target word given the context of the sentence, which is determined by the percentage of individuals who supply the word when completing a sentence whose final word is missing. Kutas and colleagues found that the N400 to sentences final words with cloze probability of 90% was smaller (i.e., more positive) than the N400 for words with cloze probability of 70%, which was then smaller for words with cloze probability of 30%.
Closely related, sentential constraint reflects the degree to which the context of the sentence constrains the number of acceptable continuations. Whereas cloze probability is the percent of individuals who choose a particular word, constraint is the number of different words chosen by a representative sample of individuals. Although words that are not predicted elicit a larger N400, the N400 to unpredicted words that are semantically related to the predicted word elicit a smaller N400 than when the unpredicted words are semantically unrelated. When the sentence context is highly constraining, semantically related words receive further facilitation in that the N400 to semantically related words is smaller in high constraint sentences than in low constraint sentences.
Evidence for the prediction of specific words comes from a study by DeLong et al. DeLong and colleagues took advantage of the use of different indefinite articles, 'A' and 'AN' for English words that begin with a consonant or vowel respectively. They found that when the most probable sentence completion began with a consonant, the N400 was larger for 'AN' than for 'A' and vice versa, suggesting that prediction occurs at both a semantic and lexical level during language processing. (The study never replicated. In the most recent multi-lab attempt (335 participants), no evidence for word form prediction was found (Niewland et al., 2018).
The P300, specifically the P3b is an ERP response to improbable stimuli and is sensitive to the subjective probability that a particular stimulus will occur. The P300 has been closely tied to context updating, which can be initiated by unexpected stimuli.
The P600 an ERP response to syntactic violations, as well as complex, but error free, language. A P600-like response is also observed for thematically implausible sentences: example, "For breakfast, the eggs would only EAT toast and jam". Both P600 responses are generally attributed to the process of revising or continuing the analysis of the sentence. The syntactic P600 has been compared to the P300 in that both responses are sensitive to similar manipulations; importantly, the probability of the stimulus. The similarity between the two responses may suggest that the P300 significantly contributes to the syntactic P600 response.
A late positivity is often observed subsequent to the N400. Recent meta-analysis of the ERP literature on language processing has identified two different Post-N400 Positivities. In comparing the Post-N400 Positivity (PNP) for congruent and incongruent sentence final words, a parietal PNP is observed for incongruent words. This parietal PNP is similar to the typical P600 response, suggesting continued or revised analysis. Within the congruent condition, when comparing high- and low-cloze probability sentence final words, a PNP response (if it is observed) is generally distributed across the front of the scalp. A recent study has shown that the frontal PNP may reflect processing an unexpected lexical item instead of an unexpected concept, suggesting that the frontal PNP reflects disconfirmed lexical predictions.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a neuroimaging technology that uses nuclear magnetic resonance to measure blood oxygenation levels in the brain and spinal cord. Because neural activity affects blood flow, the pattern of the hemodynamic response is thought to correspond closely to the pattern of neural activity. The fine spatial resolution afforded by fMRI allows cognitive neuroscientists to see in detail which areas of the brain are activated in relation to an experimental task. However, the hemodynamic response is much slower than the neural activity measured by EEG and MEG. This poor sensitivity to timing information makes fMRI a less useful technique than EEG or eyetracking for studying linguistic prediction.
One exception is an fMRI test of the differences in neural activation between strategic and automatic semantic priming. When the time between the prime and the target word is short (around 150 milliseconds), priming is theorized to rely on automatic neural processes. However, at longer time intervals (approaching 1 second), it is thought that experimental subjects strategically predict related upcoming words and suppress unrelated words, leading to a processing penalty in the event that an unrelated word actually occurs. An fMRI test of this hypothesis showed that at longer intervals, the processing penalty for an incorrect prediction is related to heightened activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus and Broca's area.
The surprisal theory is a theory of sentence processing based on information theory. In the surprisal theory, the cost of processing a word is determined by its self-information, or how predictable the word is, given its context. A highly probable word carries a small amount of self-information and would therefore be processed easily, as measured by reduced reaction time, a smaller N400 response, or reduced fixation times in an eyetracking reading study. Empirical tests of this theory have shown a high degree of match between processing cost measures and the self-information values assigned to words.
An acceptability judgment task, also called acceptability rating task, is a common method in empirical linguistics to gather information about the internal grammar of speakers of a language.
The goal of acceptability rating studies is to gather insights into the mental grammars of participants. As the grammaticality of a linguistic construction is an abstract construct that cannot be accessed directly, this type of tasks is usually not called grammaticality, but acceptability judgment. This can be compared to intelligence. Intelligence is an abstract construct that cannot be measured directly. What can be measured are the outcomes of specific test items. The result of one item, however, is not very telling. Instead, IQ tests consist of several items building a score. Similarly, in acceptability rating studies, grammatical constructions are measured through several items, i.e., sentences to be rated. This is also done to ensure that participants do not rate the meaning of a particular sentence.
The difference between acceptability and grammaticality is linked to the distinction between performance and competence in generative grammar.
Several different types of acceptability rating tasks are used in linguistics. The most common tasks use Likert scales. Forced choice and yes-no rating tasks are also common. Besides these classical test types, there are other, methods like thermometer judgments or magnitude estimation which have been argued to be more difficult to process for participants, however.
Verbal intelligence is the ability to understand and reason using concepts framed in words. More broadly, it is linked to problem solving, abstract reasoning, and working memory. Verbal intelligence is one of the most "g"-loaded abilities.
In order to understand linguistic intelligence, it is important to understand the mechanisms that control speech and language. These mechanisms can be broken down into four major groups: speech generation (talking), speech comprehension (hearing), writing generation (writing), and writing comprehension (reading).
In a practical sense, linguistic intelligence is the extent to which an individual can use language, both written and verbal, to achieve goals.
Linguistic intelligence is a part of Howard Gardner's multiple intelligence theory that deals with individuals' ability to understand both spoken and written language, as well as their ability to speak and write themselves.
In most cases, speech production is controlled by the left hemisphere. In a series of studies, Wilder Penfield, among others, probed the brains of both right-handed (generally left-hemisphere dominant) and left-handed (generally right-hemisphere dominant) patients. They discovered that, regardless of handedness, the left hemisphere was almost always the speech controlling side. However, it has been discovered that in cases of neural stress (hemorrhage, stroke, etc.) the right hemisphere has the ability to take control of speech functions.
Verbal Comprehension is a fairly complex process, and it is not fully understood. From various studies and experiments, it has been found that the superior temporal sulcus activates when hearing human speech, and that speech processing seems to occur within Wernicke's area.
Generation of written language is thought to be closely related to speech generation. Neurophysiologically speaking, it is believed that Broca's area is crucial for early linguistic processing, while the inferior frontal gyrus is critical in semantic processing. According to Penfield, writing differs in two major ways from verbal language. First, instead of relating the thought to sounds, the brain must relate the thought to symbols or letters, and second, the motor cortex activates a different set of muscles to write, than when speaking.
Written comprehension, similar to spoken comprehension, seems to occur primarily in Wernicke's area. However, instead of using the auditory system to gain language input, written comprehension relies on the visual system.
While the capabilities of the physical structures used are large factors in determining linguistic intelligence, there have been several genes that have been linked to individual linguistic ability. The NRXN1 gene has been linked to general language ability, and mutations of this gene has been shown to cause major issues to overall linguistic intelligence. The CNTNAP2 gene is believed to affect language development and performance, and mutations in this gene is thought to be involved in autism spectrum disorders. PCDH11 has been linked to language capacity, and it is believed to be one of the factors that accounts for the variation in linguistic intelligence.
The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III (WAIS-III) divides Verbal IQ (VIQ) into two categories:
In general, it is difficult to test for linguistic intelligence as a whole, therefore various types of verbal fluency tests are often used.
In one series of tests, it was shown that when children were given verbal fluency tests, a larger portion of their cortex activated compared to adults, as well as activation of both the left and right hemispheres. This is most likely due to the high plasticity of newly developing brains.
Recently, a study was done showing that verbal fluency test results can differ depending on the mental focus of the subject. In this study, mental focus on physical speech production mechanisms caused speech production times to suffer, whereas mental focus on auditory feedback improved these times.
Since linguistic intelligence is based on several complex skills, there are many disorders and injuries that can affect an individual's linguistic intelligence.
There are several disorders that primarily affect only language skills. Three major pure language disorders are Developmental verbal dyspraxia, specific language impairment, and stuttering. Developmental verbal dyspraxia (DVD) is a disorder where children have errors in consonant and vowel production. Specific language impairment (SLI) is a disorder where the patient has a lack of language acquisition skills, despite a seemingly normal intelligence level in other areas. Stuttering is a fairly common disorder where speech flow is interrupted by involuntary repetitions of syllables.