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        <title>Frontiers in Language Sciences | Psycholinguistics section | New and Recent Articles</title>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/language-sciences/sections/psycholinguistics</link>
        <description>RSS Feed for Psycholinguistics section in the Frontiers in Language Sciences journal | New and Recent Articles</description>
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        <pubDate>2026-05-11T21:05:50.04+00:00</pubDate>
        <ttl>60</ttl>
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        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1756472</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1756472</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Cross-linguistic influence in the processing of aspect in L2 English: Slavic, but not Norwegian L1 speakers associate past simple with completion]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-05-08T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Anna Kamenetski</author><author>Natalia Mitrofanova</author><author>Julia Ermolina</author><author>Serge Minor</author>
        <description><![CDATA[This study investigated the role of L1 influence on how L2 speakers interpret aspectual semantics of English past simple accomplishments. English past simple is aspectually underspecified and is thus vulnerable to the transfer of L1 aspectual representations. Slavic languages (Russian, Polish) grammaticalize dual perfective-imperfective aspect. Norwegian does not grammaticalize aspect. L1 Polish (n = 57), Russian (n = 20), and Norwegian (n = 50) speakers participated in two web-based Visual World Paradigm eyetracking experiments. Offline judgments and online gaze preferences from both experiments showed that L1 Slavic speakers associated English past simple with completed event pictures. This categorical association strengthened in offline judgments with higher L2 proficiency. L1 Norwegian speakers associated English past simple with ongoing events both online and offline. This association weakened in offline judgments with higher L2 proficiency. These findings provide evidence of L1 transfer during L2 aspectual interpretation and elucidate the interaction between crosslinguistic influence and L2 proficiency. Implications for theoretical models of cross-linguistic influence are discussed.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1789171</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1789171</link>
        <title><![CDATA[The power of words depends on context: action congruence differentially shapes activation by words and sounds]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-04-29T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Alberto Falcón</author><author>Michelle Ramírez</author><author>Ulianov Montano</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Linguistic labels have been shown to facilitate visual recognition and categorization. Labels have also been shown to be better facilitators than sounds. However, less is known about how nouns in contrast with verbs and non-verbal sounds differentially activate action-related conceptual information. In the present study, we investigated whether words and non-verbal sounds vary in their ability to facilitate visual processing depending on their congruence with an implied action. Participants were presented to an image verification task in which visual stimuli were preceded by either nouns, non-verbal sounds or verbs that were either congruent or incongruent with the action associated with the target stimulus. Reaction times were analyzed using linear mixed-effects models. Results revealed a robust interaction between cue type and action congruence. Non-verbal sounds and verbs produced significantly faster responses when the action was congruent compared to incongruent trials, whereas nouns were optimal only when action was incongruent. These findings suggest that action information plays a role in the representations activated by words and non-verbal sounds. In addition, the evidence shows that verbs appear to activate action-related information similar to that evoked by non-verbal sounds. More broadly, the results contribute to ongoing debates about the mechanisms by which language and non-linguistic cues shape perceptual processing, highlighting the role of action-related cues in predictive conceptual activation.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1736089</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1736089</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Bound to be noticed? Opposing effects of boundedness on attention to morphemes in L2 reading]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-04-20T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Georgia Knell</author><author>Saioa Cipitria</author><author>Ludovic De Cuypere</author><author>Alex Housen</author><author>Esli Struys</author>
        <description><![CDATA[IntroductionSalience—the extent to which a feature stands out from its environment-has been posited as an important cognitive factor in second language (L2) acquisition. However, supporting empirical research remains scarce, particularly looking at specific effects of salience properties in isolation. For example, although morphological boundedness of a form has been theorized to impact its salience, to date no study has considered morphological boundedness individually as an independent variable in relation to linguistic salience.MethodsTo address this gap, the present study uses an English-based semi-artificial target language in an implicit, reading-based learning task that allows boundedness to be manipulated in isolation from other factors. This design makes it possible to compare the effects of boundedness on attention, awareness, and early-stage acquisition (intake) of L2 morphological forms. We further considered how boundedness interacts with another salience property: morpheme length. Finally, we considered the relationship between salience effects and certain external factors that might impact attention and awareness: learning condition (incidental versus intentional), and three individual learner variables (L2 proficiency, working memory capacity, and implicit learning ability). Eye-tracking measured attention to and intake of target forms, and retrospective interviews measured awareness.ResultsResults showed greater skipping rates of bound versus unbound morphemes, but also greater fixation durations for bound morphemes. Longer forms were skipped less and fixated longer than short forms regardless of boundedness. Individual learner variables had no moderating effect on either salience variable, while the intentional learning condition yielded longer fixations on the short morpheme specifically than the incidental condition. Attention results only partially correlated with awareness, and no evidence of intake was found.DiscussionWhile the attention results were as expected regarding length, the opposing results of attention measures regarding awareness show differences in effects of boundedness on initial versus prolonged attention. Overall, the results suggest that the relationship between salience, attention, awareness, and acquisition might be more complex than some theories posit.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1796274</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1796274</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Embodied experience of LIFE and DEATH across languages: perceptual and action-based norms]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-04-14T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Hassan Banaruee</author><author>Omid Khatin-Zadeh</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Understanding how highly abstract concepts are grounded in bodily experience remains a central challenge in embodied cognition and language research. This study investigates the embodied representation of the highly abstract concepts LIFE and DEATH across Persian, German, and English, combining a cross-linguistic sensorimotor norming approach with an analysis of socio-cognitive predictors of embodiment. Native speakers of the three languages rated LIFE and DEATH along 11 sensorimotor dimensions, including six perceptual modalities (visual, auditory, haptic, olfactory, gustatory, and interoceptive) and five action-based dimensions associated with specific body effectors (hand/arm, foot/leg, torso, mouth/throat, and head). The results reveal systematic cross-linguistic differences in the perceptual and bodily grounding of both concepts, with LIFE showing stronger and more consistent embodiment than DEATH across languages. Importantly, multivariate analyses demonstrate that embodiment patterns are not uniform but are significantly modulated by socio-cognitive variables. Language and nation emerged as the strongest predictors of embodiment, particularly for DEATH, while handedness, gender, and religion exerted more selective, domain-specific effects. In contrast, level of education did not reliably predict sensorimotor embodiment. Our findings are consistent with graded or weak embodiment frameworks, according to which abstract concepts are instantiated through flexible, culturally and bodily mediated simulations rather than fixed sensorimotor mappings. By integrating sensorimotor norms with socio-cognitive predictors, the study advances a more nuanced account of how body, language, and culture jointly shape the embodiment of the abstract concepts LIFE and DEATH.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1760372</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1760372</link>
        <title><![CDATA[When gender meets number: facilitative processing of one vs. two features on Spanish definite articles]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-04-01T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Zuzanna Fuchs</author><author>Esra Eldem-Tunç</author><author>Linh Pham</author><author>Leo Mermelstein</author><author>Anna Runova</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Research on real-time language comprehension has shown that speakers of various language backgrounds can use a pre-nominal morphosyntactic cue to facilitate the lexical retrieval of an upcoming noun. The present study takes the next step in this domain, investigating facilitative processing when two morphosyntactic cues to the target noun are available: gender and number. We conduct an eye-tracking study using the Visual World Paradigm, and we compare baseline and heritage speakers to determine how language experience modulates the relative weighting of multiple cues. We find evidence of facilitative processing of plural articles for both groups, not only when both features are informative cues to the target, but also when only one of the features is informative. This suggests that listeners access each morphosyntactic feature independently, which is a particularly noteworthy finding for the heritage group, who have been argued not to do so in prior offline studies. However, we find that language experience impacts the relative weighting of the two cues. When gender and number are compatible with different competitors and are thus in direct conflict, baseline speakers shift more to gender competitors, whereas heritage speakers do not. Additionally, when each feature uniquely identifies the target, in some contexts baseline speakers may attend to only the gender feature, whereas heritage speakers may attend to only the number feature. Taken together, these results suggest that baseline speakers may weight abstract grammatical gender more strongly, while heritage speakers may rely more on the semantically salient feature.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1768590</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1768590</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Shifting expectations: when knowledge-based predictions and linguistic context collide]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-03-20T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Melissa Troyer</author><author>Kara D. Federmeier</author>
        <description><![CDATA[To cope with the demands of language comprehension, young adults often actively engage in prediction of upcoming information—which may be more or less successful depending on each individual's specific knowledge. However, limited research has directly investigated the link between existing knowledge and real-time mechanisms of prediction. Here, we focus on a specific knowledge domain, the fictional world of Harry Potter (HP). Participants with varying degrees of HP knowledge read sentences about general topics and then about HP, each containing a predictable, unexpected-but-plausible, or implausible critical word, while we recorded event-related brain potentials. As expected, HP knowledge modulated N400 amplitudes (an ERP known to index availability of word meaning) to predictable words in HP sentences. HP knowledge also modulated late frontal positivities (LFPs; associated with shifting meaning interpretation upon encountering prediction violations) to unexpected-but-plausible words. The extent to which domain knowledge modulated both N400s and LFPs to unexpected-but-plausible continuations depended on how generally well-known the content in the sentence was. High-knowledge individuals showed reduced initial facilitation (i.e., larger N400 amplitudes) for unexpected-but-plausible words when the sentence contents were generally well-known (compared to less well-known), suggesting that they used their domain knowledge to “override” a more generic interpretation. They additionally showed a greater frontal positivity when sentence contents were less (compared to more) well known, suggesting a willingness to consider alternate interpretations when knowledge is weaker and/or more uncertain—but less so when knowledge is strong. We conclude that possessing relevant knowledge may shape predictive processes during language comprehension, suggesting people may shift their “mode” of language processing depending on existing knowledge and comprehension demands.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1734306</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1734306</link>
        <title><![CDATA[ChatGPT-simulated sentence plausibility in event contexts, with teens, younger and older adults, in fiction and newspaper texts]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-03-19T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Pia Knoeferle</author>
        <description><![CDATA[The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent the large language model (LLM) would produce simulations that are close enough to human-based world knowledge to serve as pilot data for human experimentation: LLMs are developing rapidly, and if they become sufficiently accurate databases of human world knowledge, this would open up interesting opportunities for empirical research; with their advent we may have the opportunity of accessing a comprehensive model of world knowledge. This claim was assessed by simulating human plausibility ratings and their variation depending on (i) the presence vs. absence of an event description, (ii) the age of LLM-simulated participants (Pilot 1, Pilot 2, and Experiment 1a), and (iii) LLM-simulated participant expectations of distinct text sources/genres (Experiment 1b). In four pilot studies and two main experiments, ChatGPT-4o/5 plausibility ratings were simulated from the graphical user interface using written prompts, factorial designs, Latin-square counterbalanced lists, and N = 200 simulated participants per between-participant factor level. In this way, an experiment setup much like that for in-laboratory experiments with human participants was simulated. As a baseline, plausibility ratings generated via the LLM chat interface were compared against human plausibility ratings reported in prior research. Overall, ChatGPT produced simulated ratings that, on average, were higher for plausible than implausible sentences, and were higher when an event description supported the event conveyed by the target sentence. The model also revealed fine-grained differences depending on simulated participant age, context-sentence relations, and genre. These results can be used to guide the formulation of testable hypotheses for future research with human participants.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1722519</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1722519</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Cross-linguistic phonetic differences affect lexical co-activation in second-language learners]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-03-16T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Sophia Wulfert</author>
        <description><![CDATA[IntroductionWhen listening to speech in one language, bilinguals have been shown to activate word candidates from both their languages, which then compete for recognition. Similarity between the auditory input and the mental representations is a crucial factor for activation of a candidate. However, similarity is usually defined in terms of phoneme overlap, which might not be fine-grained enough to capture the reality of lexical co-activation and subsequent competition. The present study investigates how subphonemic differences between phonemically identical German–English word pairs influence their co-activation.MethodsIn a Lexical Decision (LD) experiment with cross-linguistic priming, L1-German learners of English heard an English prime word, followed by a written German target word or non-word and indicated whether the target was a German word or a non-word. Primes and targets showed either no phonemic overlap (Unrelated condition), partial overlap (Similar condition) or full phonemic overlap (Identical condition). In the critical Identical condition, English primes and German targets were phonemically identical—either cognates (e.g., /nεst/“nest”) or Interlingual Homophones (ILHs; e.g., /gɪft/, English “gift” /German “poison”)—but varied in their phonetic similarity due to phonetic differences between the languages.ResultsA comparison of reaction times (RTs) across all priming conditions revealed opposing effects for cognates and ILHs on the phonemic level: For cognate targets, there was facilitation the more phoneme overlap there was between prime and target, while ILH targets were subject to inhibition with more phoneme overlap between prime and target. A comparison of RTs to items of varying phonetic similarity within the Identical condition revealed similar facilitation effects for cognates and ILHs on the phonetic level: RTs to both decreased as a function of phonetic similarity between prime and target.DiscussionThese findings suggest differential roles of phonemic and phonetic similarity during the processes of (co-)activation and competition and complex interactions between levels. Implications for models of bilingual speech comprehension are discussed.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1753250</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1753250</link>
        <title><![CDATA[From metrics to meaning: large language models and the computational turn in embodied educational research]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-03-11T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Perspective</category>
        <author>Daniel Autenrieth</author><author>Nina Autenrieth</author><author>Danyal Farsani</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Educational science has long grappled with a methodological tension: quantitative metrics offer scale but often lack depth, while qualitative inquiry offers depth but is difficult to scale. Mixed-methods approaches have sought to address this tension by combining both paradigms, yet practical constraints of time, labor, and analytical capacity have typically limited how fully researchers can integrate interpretive depth with large-scale analysis. At the same time, theories of embodied cognition emphasize that learning, language, and communication are grounded in sensorimotor, affective, and socio-cultural experience rather than in abstract, amodal symbols. The emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) and multimodal Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides new opportunities to bridge these methodological and theoretical developments. In this article, we conceptualize “Computational Hermeneutics” as the interpretation of meaning at scale, informed by embodied perspectives on cognition, language, and communication. We outline three computational methodologies applicable to educational research: Semantic Similarity Rating (SSR), AI-based Qualitative Content Analysis (AI-QCA), and Computational Ethnography via multimodal video analysis. We show how these approaches can operationalize embodied, hermeneutic processes, such as interpreting student reflections, tracing metaphorical embodiment, or analyzing classroom habitus, at a scale previously reserved for standardized testing. By detailing the theoretical basis, opportunities, and limitations of these methods, we argue for a “computational turn” in educational science and research that remains faithful to embodied, multimodal meaning-making while overcoming traditional scalability constraints.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1756463</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1756463</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Lexical vs. structural cue use in L2 prediction: filler-gap parsing ability shapes learners' information use]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-03-04T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Chie Nakamura</author><author>Suzanne Flynn</author><author>Yoichi Miyamoto</author><author>Noriaki Yusa</author>
        <description><![CDATA[This study examines whether second language (L2) sentence processing is governed by the same underlying mechanisms as native language processing or whether it relies on qualitatively distinct mechanisms. Using the visual-world paradigm and permutation analyses, we compared native English speakers and Japanese second language (L2) learners of English in processing globally ambiguous filler-gap dependencies (e.g., Where did Lizzie tell someone that she was going to catch butterflies?). By distinguishing L2 learners based on their comprehension accuracy for unambiguous filler-gap sentences, we identified systematic variation in the mechanisms guiding predictive processing. High-accuracy learners exhibited anticipatory eye-movement patterns comparable to those of native speakers, consistent with the use of structurally guided predictive dependency formation. In contrast, low-accuracy learners also showed predictive behavior, but this prediction was driven primarily by lexical or surface-level regularities rather than structural information. Importantly, neither the structure-based prediction observed in the high-accuracy group nor the lexical cue-based predictive observed in the low-accuracy group can be attributed to direct transfer from Japanese. Together, these results support a gradient view of L2 sentence processing in which qualitatively different predictive mechanisms coexist and may shift as a function of learners' structural computation ability, rather than a simple contrast between non-predictive and native-like processing.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1763160</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1763160</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Auditory-perceptual acuity impacts prosodic boundary prediction in a gating task]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-03-02T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Andrea Hofmann</author><author>Outi Tuomainen</author><author>Sandra Hanne</author><author>João Veríssimo</author><author>Isabell Wartenburger</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Processing of prosodic phrasing requires listeners to integrate acoustic cues that unfold incrementally during speech comprehension, yet substantial individual differences exist in how listeners use unfolding prosodic information. This study investigated whether individual differences in auditory-perceptual discrimination abilities for prosodic boundary cues are related to processing of prosodic phrasing, and, more specifically, the ability to use the incremental bottom-up prosodic information for making top-down predictions about the syntactic structure of an unfolding utterance. Sixty German-speaking adults completed adaptive staircase procedures measuring Just-Noticeable-Difference thresholds for auditory-perceptual acuity in pitch, pause, and final lengthening discrimination. In addition, they performed a gating task that provided snippets of coordinate three-name sequences with or without an internal prosodic boundary in a randomized order. Performance in the gating task was analyzed using Bayesian multilevel Signal Detection Theory models to separate discriminability from response bias. Participants with higher auditory-perceptual acuity demonstrated better prediction of the upcoming structure across all gates. When all three auditory-perceptual acuity measures were modeled simultaneously, each individual effect attenuated substantially, indicating shared, rather than independent, predictive variance. These findings suggest that top-down prediction during speech comprehension is related to overall auditory-perceptual acuity rather than independent boundary-cue-specific sensitivities.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1721326</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1721326</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Integrating language model embeddings into the ACT-R cognitive modeling framework]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-02-23T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Maryam Meghdadi</author><author>John Duff</author><author>Vera Demberg</author>
        <description><![CDATA[In 2025, psycholinguistic research has the benefit of large, high-quality datasets of human behavior, and massively-scalable metrics for variables of interest like frequency and association. This means we have more data than ever before to shed light on classic language processing phenomena like associative priming. But in order to build and test rigorous theories against this data, we also need computational modeling tools that can simulate cognitive mechanisms and generate quantitative predictions at the same scale. In this paper, we assemble one such case, adapting the ACT-R cognitive modeling framework to make use of association metrics derived from language model embeddings, in service of a scalable model of associative priming in the Lexical Decision Task. ACT-R implements a model of memory retrieval that can use itemwise predictors like frequency and association to predict task response times (RTs), via interpretable and meaningfully-parameterized components like spreading activation. But currently, ACT-R's spreading activation calculations rely on manually-coded similarity scores, which are labor-intensive and prone to inaccuracies, particularly for large vocabularies. In this study, we replace these hand-coded associations with cosine similarity scores derived from Word2Vec and BERT embeddings, thereby improving both scalability and predictive accuracy while retaining ACT-R's interpretability. We compare various versions of our model against observed human RTs from the Semantic Priming Project dataset, observing impressive item-wise prediction accuracy, and achieving the strongest alignment with a model where spreading activation is penalized via a scalable approximation of the classic “fan effect.” These findings provide a proof of concept for integrating embedding-based representations into algorithmic-level models of language processing. More than an insight into models of priming, we see this as a first step toward scalable and specific models of more complex phenomena.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1750939</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1750939</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Co-registration of EEG and eye-tracking in psycholinguistics and bilingualism research]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-02-13T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Review</category>
        <author>Cristina López-Rojas</author><author>Concepción Soto</author><author>Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim</author><author>Viorica Marian</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Eye-tracking and electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings provide a window into the human mind. Combining both methods through co-registration offers a powerful and innovative approach for examining how cognitive and neural processes unfold in real time. While both EEG and eye-tracking have independently advanced our understanding of bilingual language processing, co-registration research in the field of bilingualism remains scarce. Given the potential of co-registration methodology to integrate multiple sources of information, this article provides a theoretically and empirically informed perspective on how it can be applied to bilingualism research. Drawing on findings from EEG and eye-tracking studies on bilingual language processing, as well as co-registration research in reading, we identify key areas of bilingualism, such as crosslinguistic activation and inference revision, where co-registration can help address existing gaps. We also discuss several methodological challenges associated with co-registration and offer practical recommendations for its effective implementation in future studies. We conclude that co-registration can move research on bilingual language processing toward a more integrated perspective, one that better captures the dynamic interplay between language and cognition.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1792113</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2026.1792113</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Editorial: Interacting factors in the development of discourse practices from childhood to adulthood]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-02-11T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Editorial</category>
        <author>Liliana Tolchinsky</author><author>Ruth A. Berman</author><author>Julie Dockrell</author>
        <description></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1708378</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1708378</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Representation distortion contributes to agreement attraction in comprehension]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-02-04T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Maayan Keshev</author><author>Mandy Cartner</author><author>Aya Meltzer-Asscher</author><author>Brian Dillon</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Sentence comprehension relies on encoding linguistic items in memory and accessing them subsequently to form linguistic dependencies. This makes processing susceptible to memory interference. Interference, such as the distortion of memory representations or access to irrelevant memory items, can lead to misinterpretation or grammatical errors. Over the years, research on agreement attraction has debated whether this hallmark of memory interference reflects limits of the retrieval mechanism, or inaccuracy of the encoded representations that retrieval targets. We present some evidence in favor of representational accounts of memory interference. Our findings include partial evidence for three kinds of representational effects: (a) the ungrammaticality illusion, a pattern by which attraction arises without misleading retrieval cues; (b) number errors rather than noun errors in final interpretation; and (c) mitigation of attraction when additional markers of the subject's number are available, which we label feature updating. Together, the findings seem to suggest that feature distortion in the content of memory representations contributes to attraction effects. We propose that models of memory mechanisms that mediate dependency formation should incorporate malleable representations rather than stable ones.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1703230</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1703230</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Spoken sentence comprehension in Mandarin-English bilinguals: a case against the universal processing advantage of subject-relatives]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-02-03T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Preeti Rishi</author><author>Yusheng Wang</author><author>Tracy Love</author><author>Henrike K. Blumenfeld</author>
        <description><![CDATA[IntroductionThis study investigates sentence comprehension in Mandarin-English bilinguals, focusing on whether the widely reported, yet contested, subject-relative processing advantage extends to bilingual speakers. We evaluate which theoretical accounts, based on syntactic structure and canonicity, best explain cross-linguistic patterns of sentence processing.MethodsUsing a sentence-picture matching task, we examined the comprehension of canonical (e.g., actives) and non-canonical (e.g., passives) sentence structures in English and Mandarin for bilingual speakers of varying ages and Mandarin and English proficiency levels across two separate studies (n = 18 and n = 35).ResultsIn English, bilingual participants exhibited a robust canonical sentence advantage across studies, with better comprehension of subject-relative over object-relative sentences and active over passive sentences, mirroring monolingual processing patterns. However, in Mandarin, comprehension patterns were less robust and more variable. While subject-relative and object-relative comprehension did not significantly differ at the group level, passive vs. active sentences consistently posed greater difficulty and increased performance variability across both studies, particularly among lower-performing individuals.DiscussionThese results suggest that sentence comprehension is shaped by language-specific constraints rather than a universal subject-relative advantage. Findings align with unified theoretical accounts that incorporate canonicity-based and structural factors, including word order, syntactic structure, and experience-, usage-, and frequency-based influences. Our results highlight the complex interplay between the aforementioned factors that differ across languages, with implications for both theoretical linguistics and clinical applications.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1761548</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1761548</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Embodiment, enaction, and the lived body in foreign language learning: a novel conception of action-oriented language education]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-01-28T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Conceptual Analysis</category>
        <author>Arnd Witte</author>
        <description><![CDATA[In educational settings, theory and practice of foreign language (FL) learning have been dominated by a cognitive output-driven notion of an ostensibly quantifiable “efficiency” of FL learning. The concepts of enaction and embodiment challenge the conventional view of language learning by positing that the learner's organism endows components of the environment with specific meaningfulness, and the environment provides the organism with specific affordances, activating modality-specific brain areas. Hence, cognitive learning processes can no longer be understood as linear input-output functions for accumulating information in the brain but must involve the sensory and motor capacities of learners' bodies. Action-oriented foreign language learning scenarios mobilize preverbal (inter)corporeal experiences, which are actually lived through in multisensorial and multimodal experiences. Whereas methodologies promoting bodily activation emphasize learners becoming more attuned to the foreign language-framed eco-social environment and its semiotic resources, they tend to overlook the aspect of the learner's immaterial lived body and its pre-reflective resonances with and responses to actually experiencing the FL and its manifestations which is vital for connecting subjective corporeal memories to the FL learning process. What was corporeally sensed as striking resonances can be made explicit through attentiveness and reflective verbal explication. Conversely, learned items appear to be more meaningful to the learner when the situated affective background shines through. Since language is a form of embodied sociality, the objective for FL learners is to incorporate the foreign language as an integrated semiotic repertoire for sociocultural behavior through body mobilization and enhanced attentiveness to the preverbal resonances and responses of their lived body.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1717090</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1717090</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Speech connectedness and linguistic complexity as predictors of Chinese—English bilinguals' interpreting performance]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-01-26T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Yue Lang</author><author>Janaina Weissheimer</author><author>Ingrid Finger</author><author>Judith Kroll</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Interpreting provides a unique window into bilingual processing, as it requires the rapid transfer of meaning across languages under high temporal and cognitive constraints. This study investigates speech connectedness and linguistic complexity as predictors of interpreting performance in Chinese–English non-interpreter bilinguals. Consecutive interpreting data from 917 participants in the Parallel Corpus of Chinese EFL Learners (PACCEL) were analyzed using two computational tools: SpeechGraphs, to measure speech connectedness, and Coh-Metrix, to assess linguistic complexity. Results showed that higher interpreting scores were associated with greater long-range connectedness and fewer short-range recurrences, suggesting that more fluent and coherent speech reflects more efficient cognitive processing. Coh-Metrix indices further revealed that better-performing participants produced texts containing less frequent words, higher lexical specificity, and were more complex. Together, these findings indicate that measures of speech connectedness and linguistic complexity might serve as reliable predictors of interpreting competence in Chinese–English non-interpreter bilinguals. By integrating large-scale learner data with computational analyses, the study highlights how linguistic output can index underlying cognitive–linguistic mechanisms in bilingual interpreting.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1722280</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1722280</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Beyond error-driven adaptation: proactive validation as a goal-directed mechanism of language processing and learning]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-01-26T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Perspective</category>
        <author>Julia Edeleva</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Recent advances in psycholinguistics increasingly frame language processing as a predictive process: listeners and readers continuously anticipate upcoming linguistic input. Deviations from those expectations—prediction errors—are assumed to stimulate both moment-by-moment processing and long-term learning. While highly influential, this view implicitly assumes that the adaptation is driven by discrepancies. Such an approach overlooks a crucial aspect of rational human behavior: Rational agents generally act to avoid failure, not to repeatedly learn from it. In the current perspective paper, I review the evidence for prediction error minimization as a proactive, preemptive (rather than reactive repair) mechanism of language processing. Rather than reacting after a mismatch, language users will accumulate evidence by maintaining and validating less probable parses to reduce a risk of failure. By proposing proactive validation as a proactive, goal-directed mechanism, the paper seeks to complement rational models of predictive processing by shifting the temporal and mechanistic focus from post-hoc long-term statistical adjustment to anticipatory optimization. This framework provides a unified explanation for cross-linguistic and developmental variability in processing difficulty, such as reduced processing cost for non-canonical structures in morphologically rich languages and the gradual shift from reactive to proactive strategies in language learners. On a broader scale, anticipatory validation can explain why the comprehension system tolerates ambiguity and maintains suboptimal parses—not to correct errors retrospectively, but to pre-empt them prospectively.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1712313</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/flang.2025.1712313</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Embodied metaphors in Friedrich Schiller's “Die Bürgschaft”: a cognitive-linguistic analysis]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-01-21T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Kemal Demir</author><author>Salih Özenici</author>
        <description><![CDATA[This article examines Friedrich Schiller's ballad Die Bürgschaft within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), focusing on the bodily grounding of metaphorical structures (embodiment). Based on a systematic stanza-by-stanza analysis of the ballad's 20 stanzas, it argues that recurrent embodied mappings play a central role in structuring abstract domains such as time, emotions, moral values, and decisive life events. Methodologically, the study identifies metaphorical expressions in each stanza, assigns source and target domains, and links these mappings to recurring image-schematic patterns. This procedure allows the analysis to move beyond isolated figures of speech and to reconstruct metaphorical language as a textually organized system that guides interpretation across the narrative progression. The results reveal four dominant, interacting patterns: TIME IS MOVEMENT (PATH-based urgency), EMOTIONS AS BODILY STATES, DIFFICULTY IS AN OBSTACLE (force–resistance dynamics), and MORAL APPROACHING (proximity/contact cues). Importantly, these mappings are treated as textually licensed and narratively functional configurations in a specific literary and cultural context, not as strong claims about universal embodiment. By situating the findings against recent cross-cultural and multimodal perspectives on embodied meaning, the paper positions literary analysis as a complementary, hypothesis-generating domain that can refine and contextualize empirically oriented research on embodiment, rather than replacing it.]]></description>
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