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This study aims to investigate: (1) whether differences in how well people understand the meaning and intended use of English connectives are dependent on connective-internal features such as perceived difficulty and written frequency, and (2) whether any individual variation between participants can be explained by participants’ linguistic experience, word knowledge, non-verbal IQ, and intrinsic motivation. To answer the first question, participants take part in a coherence judgment test, for which they will be asked to rate on a scale of 5 the coherence of sentences with connectives that either match the intended relation (coherent condition) or express a different relation (i.e. doesn't match the item; incoherent condition). There are two steps for every item: in the first step, participants see the item without a connective and are asked to type a connective. This step is to encourage participants to infer the intended meaning based on the two relational arguments. In the second step, they see the same item with a connective, and are asked to rate the coherence (“Please rate how well this linking word fits the sentence?”). The test includes 40 items and 20 connectives; each connective occurs once in the coherent condition and once in the incoherent condition. Coherent pairing: Lucy is feeling tired. Even so, she is going to a party. Incoherent pairing: Fran put on her shoes. Even so, she tied her shoelaces. To answer the second question, we will collect additional data from a series of individual differences tests: Author Recognition Test (measure of print exposure), a 70-item version of the Nations Vocabulary Test (word knowledge), a 12-item version of the Raven’s Progressive Matrices Test (non-verbal IQ), and a 10-item version of the Cognitive Reflection Test (intrinsic motivation). The first two tests provide insight into an individual’s linguistic experience, the latter two into an individual’s reasoning skills. Both constructs are expected to be related to connective comprehension. We will use the scores of these tests are predictors for the scores on the coherence judgment task. |
