Experimental Psycholinguistics

Esta tesis doctoral pretende aportar nuevos datos acerca de algunos aspectos teóricos que siguen siendo fuente de debate en la investigación básica sobre psicología cognitiva de la memoria. En particular, se aborda la influencia de la modalidad de presentación de los estímulos y el tipo de categoría semántica en una tarea de aprendizaje procedimiental. Por un lado, se estudia la controversia acerca de si existe uno o más sistemas de memoria semántica encargados de procesar independientemente las palabras y los dibujos. Los resultados muestran cómo no existen diferencias en el aprendizaje procedimental de la categorización semántica de palabras y de dibujos aunque las diferencias conocidas en el procesamiento de ambas modalidades estimulares afectan a la adquisición de la destreza. De esta manera, influye decisivamente el haber entrenado con una modalidad en la categorización posterior de esos mismos estímulos en la otra modalidad. Por otro lado, el hecho de categorizar conceptos diferentes a los entrenados muestra cómo se conserva la destreza adquirida durante la práctica. Por otro lado, se analiza la influencia del tipo de categoría semántica en una tarea de categorización. Los estímulos pertenecientes a categorías biológicas se categorizan más rápido que los estímulos de categorías no biológicas durante los primeros ensayos de la tarea. No obstante, este efecto desaparece con el entrenamiento incluso en las condiciones experimentales en las que tras la práctica se modifica la modalidad de presentación de los estímulos o los conceptos a categorizar.

This dissertation tries to bring new data on some theoretical aspects that are still source of debate in basic psychology of memory. In special, stimuli modality and category type influences are studied in a procedural learning task. The controversy about if there is one or there are more semantic memory systems processing words and pictures independently is analysed. Results show that there are not differences in procedural learning of semantic categorization between words and pictures. However, already known processing differences between both stimuli modalities influence on skill acquisition. Stimuli modality during study phase is decisive in posterior semantic classification of the same stimuli in the other modality during test phase. Semantic classification of different concepts during test phase shows how skill learning is conserved after practice. On the other hand, category type influence on a procedural learning task is analyzed. Stimuli belonging to biological categories are classified faster at the beginning of the task than stimuli belonging to non biological categories. However, this effect vanishes with the practice even in those experimental conditions in which stimuli modality or concepts are modified during test phase.

The phenomenon of reversing with respect to Compound Verbs in Hindi is an interesting avenue to check for linguistic processing effects. However, if the same phenomenon is replicated in Bangla, the results are totally different with respect to the consequent set of verbal constructions. In Hindi, reversing the polar and the vector components does not shift the semantic focus. The meaning comes from the same component even after reversing. But in Bangla, in most cases such a reversal makes the resultant sentence unacceptable. These reversals make the sentences incorrect as the polar positioning of the vector is incompatible for that particular sentence or for all sentences in general. In certain acceptable cases, the vector becomes an instrumental case marker in the reversed construction. So, while checking for the acceptability of such reversals in a self-paced reading paradigm, some latency effects are noticed.

The paper investigates how reaction time findings, from a self-paced reading experiment that exposes native Bangla speakers to Bangla sentences containing conjunct verbs, can provide cues about the processing of such light verb constructions. Psycholinguistic processing takes into account two components: the mental representation of the category of conjunct verbs in Bangla, and the manner in which its knowledge is situationally and discursively retrieved to address linguistic needs during comprehension in agreement with the context. Reaction time is directly proportional to the processing cost of a particular sentential construction. Higher the reaction time, higher is the difficulty faced by the participant to process a certain sentential construction, which could be due to a semantic aberration, a syntactic anomaly or an unacceptable construction.

Frequency of occurrence is an important attribute of lexical units, and one that is widely used in psychological research and theorization. Although printed frequency norms have long been available for Spanish, and subtitle-based norms have more recently been published, oral frequency norms have not been systematically compiled for a representative set of words. In this study, a corpus of over three million units, representing present-day use of the language in Spain, was used to derive a frequency count of spoken words. The corpus consisted of 913 separate documents that contained transcriptions of oral recordings obtained in a wide variety of situations, mostly radio and television programs. The resulting database, containing absolute and relative frequency values for 67,979 orally produced words, is presented. Validity analyses showed significant correlations of oral frequency with other frequency measures and suggest that oral frequency can predict some types of lexical processing with the same or higher levels of precision, when contrasted with text- or subtitle-based frequencies. In conclusion, we discuss ways in which these oral frequency norms can be put to use. The norms can be downloaded from www.springerlink.com.

Український асоціативний словник укладено за матеріалами психолінгвістичного експерименту з носіями української мови. Цей Словник продовжує традиції української лексикографії в галузі укладання асоціативних словників, започатковані Н. П. Бутенко. Охоплює слова різних частин мови, що дає змогу розширити дослідження ментального лексикону і відтворити значні фрагменти вербальної пам'яті носіїв української мови і культури. Реакції респондентів чоловічої і жіночої статі у Словнику подані окремо, що дає змогу використовувати його матеріали для ґендерних досліджень. Розглянуті цілісно, матеріали Словника допомагають виявити культурно-специфічні особливості концептуальної картини світу, що втілена в українській мові. Для мовознавців і викладачів української мови, перекладачів, психологів, соціологів і студентів усіх зазначених спеціальностей."

In response to Unger (2014), I argue that Chinese does not merely lie along one end of an undifferentiated continuum of writing systems plotted according to the degree of phonological representation found in its graphs. Rather, two features of Chinese writing make it categorically distinct from even orthographically “deep” alphabetic writing systems like English: (1) the high prevalence of graphs that represent distinct meaningful linguistic units (i.e. morphemes) and (2) the use of graphic components (variously termed significs, determinatives, taxograms, classifiers, radicals) to represent the general semantic domains of those represented morphemes. These features have implications for how Chinese writing is processed in the brain, how it changes over time, and how it has been adapted for the written representation of other languages. For these reasons we should recognize that Chinese writing is distinct from phonographic systems of writing. Any dispute over which term is most appropriate for characterizing Chinese and the other writing systems of its type—logographic, morphographic, morphosyllabic, etc.—is secondary in importance to the recognition of the validity of this categorical distinction.

Український асоціативний словник укладено за матеріалами психолінгвістичного експерименту з носіями української мови. Цей Словник продовжує традиції української лексикографії в галузі укладання асоціативних словників, започатковані Н. П. Бутенко. Охоплює слова різних частин мови, що дає змогу розширити дослідження ментального лексикону і відтворити значні фрагменти вербальної пам'яті носіїв української мови і культури. Реакції респондентів чоловічої і жіночої статі у Словнику подані окремо, що дає змогу використовувати його матеріали для ґендерних досліджень. Розглянуті цілісно, матеріали Словника допомагають виявити культурно-специфічні особливості концептуальної картини світу, що втілена в українській мові. Для мовознавців і викладачів української мови, перекладачів, психологів, соціологів і студентів усіх зазначених спеціальностей."

Publisher: Львів: Видавничий центр ЛНУ імені Івана Франка, 2007.

Neste artigo, derivado do trabalho final para o curso de Introdução a Psicolinguística do PPG em Estudos da Linguagem, apresenta-se uma síntese dos principais temas abordados na Psicolinguística. Esta primeira parte contém informação com respeito ao campo da Psicolinguística: o objeto de estudo, os objetivos, a localização na classificação de David Marr, a sua relação com a teoria linguística, os principais dados históricos e a metodologia usada na pesquisa. Por fim, uma revisão de algumas questões abordadas dentro da Psicolinguística: O acesso lexical na compreensão, o acesso lexical na produção e o processamento sintático (ou estudos de parsing).

Cognitive Linguistics, which primarily deals with the conceptual structures of human mind via their language manifestation, opens new prospects in study- ing binary oppositions. Despite numerous researches of this phenomenon, lots of questions raised here do not have
exhaustive answers. What we need is not only inquiry oriented toward ascertainment of the universality (or the degree of universality) of some binary oppositions, but studies of their system in a certain linguaculture within a given time period. The precise study of interrelations
among various symbolic domains in this sphere is another important problem. Furthermore, binary oppositions should not be seen as stable and unchangeable structures presented within human consciousness but they must be regarded as the external manifestation of specific cognitive
mechanisms. This  paper  presents  an  empirical investigation  of  the  binary  opposition
LIGHT-DARK based on the method of an associative experiment. The analysis of the responses clearly reveals binary oppositions which are deep-rooted in the speakers’ consciousness and which closely interact. These oppositions build a rich background for the metaphorical interchange between corresponding domains which create a whole system where the correlating parts are used
for the metaphoric designation of each other. The main focus of this study is the interaction of cognitive mechanisms of contradistinction with conceptual metaphor and further analysis of the result of this process in a language.

This thesis investigates the expenditure of cognitive effort in post-editing of machine translation. A mixed-method approach involving the use of eye movements, subjective ratings and think-aloud protocols was adopted for the investigation. The project aims at revealing connections between cognitive effort and variables including linguistic characteristics of the source text and the machine-translation output, post-editors’ individual traits, different linguistic aspects of the activity attended to during the task, and the quality of the post-edited texts, assessed by human translators in terms of fluency (linguistic quality) and adequacy (faithfulness to the source text). Two tasks were conducted to pursue these aims: one involving eye tracking and a self-report scale of cognitive effort, and another carried out by a different, but comparable, sample of participants, under a think-aloud condition. Results indicate that variables such as an automatic machine-translation quality score and source-text type-token ratio are good predictors of cognitive effort in post-editing. The relationship between cognitive effort and post-editors’ traits was found to be a complex one, with significant links in this respect only appearing in the context of interactions between variables. A complex relationship was also found between editing behaviour and the quality of the post-edited text: the number of changes implemented was found to have a generally positive association with post-edited fluency, though cognitive effort was found to be negatively correlated with both the fluency and adequacy of the post-edited texts. Mental processes involving grammar and lexis were significantly related to the levels of cognitive effort expended by participants. These were also the aspects most frequently attended to in the activity. From a methodological perspective, despite the criticisms received by the think-aloud method in previous research, empirical data obtained in this project indicates that think-aloud protocols correlate with eye movements and subjective ratings as measures of cognitive effort.

Graduate Student Conference.
Hosted by Charité – Medical University Berlin, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy.
Co-organized with Ivan Nenchev.
Funded by the Berlin University Alliance (BUA).

https://www.berlin-university-alliance.de/en/news/events/2021/211213-schizophrenie.html

Останні десятиліття спостерігається зацікавленість лінгвістів до проблеми вивчення національно-культурної специфіки мовної свідомості індивідуума та цілого етносу. Ментальність як складова мовної особистості відображає особливість сприйняття світу певною групою людей, об'єднаною спільною мовою, територією, національністю та ін. Актуальність нашого дослідження зумовлена антропоцентричністю сучасних лінгвістичних досліджень та зацікавленістю вчених до міжмовних та міжнаціональних зіставлень.

The topic of language evolution is characterised by the scarcity of records, but also by a large flow of research produced within multiple subtopics and perspectives. Over the past few decades, significant advancement has been made on the geographical and temporal origins of language, while current work is rather devoted to the underpinnings of language, in brain, genes, body, and culture of humans. Much of this literature is polarized over the crucial dichotomy of nativism versus emergentism. Our state of affairs report also confirms a high degree of speculation, albeit with a decrease for modelling. To tackle the speculation and the large research flow, we propose a more impersonal kind of review, focused on the topic’s questions rather than on particular accounts. Another observation is that novel perspectives are on the rise. One of these highlights the importance of perceptual cognition, often dubbed ‘embodiment,’ in the earlier evolution of language. In following this lead, we adapted a previous experiment that had investigated the relation between certain perceptual features of events, and different grammatical orders arising as participants acted out those events. Replicating that much, we went on to add a contrast between communication based on the body, as gesturing is, and more disembodied communication, such as the writing of symbols on paper. However tentative, our results reveal a greater effect of the embodiment variable, thus inviting further exploration of the role of embodied cognition in the emergence and evolution of linguistic behaviour.

""In the 1950s and 1960s, the government of the People’s Republic of China undertook, in two stages, a carefully planned “simplification” of the logographic Chinese script. Drawing on a variety of historical precedents, over 2,000 individual graphs were modified in an attempt to make the script easier to learn and use. This was the first significant change in the official form of the Chinese script in nearly two millennia, and resulted in the script variety that is widely used today in mainland China, commonly termed “simplified Chinese characters.” Drawing on recent psycholinguistic experiments that attempt to characterize the cognitive functions involved in Chinese script processing, this study revisits long-standing questions about the efficacy of character simplification and provides some additional theoretical insights into the nature of logographic writing.
The central conclusion of this study is that meaningful simplification of a logographic script is possible, but that today’s simplified character script cannot be characterized as an effective reform by any reasonable metric—it is only “simpler” in the crudest of senses. After evaluating the results of recent studies on the cognitive processing of Chinese characters, I introduce the concept of semantic orthographic depth and argue that a true simplification of a logographic script should be based on regularization of semantic and phonetic components, rather than on reduction of the number of graphs or the reduction of the number of strokes per graph. Furthermore, there is reason to believe that a well functioning logographic script has cognitive advantages over purely phonographic scripts. As a thought experiment, I apply these conclusions to sketch out a scheme for what genuinely effective logographic reform of the Chinese script might have looked like.""

This paper challenges the characterization of bilingual behavior derived from the code-switching model, and especially the notion of linguistic independence on which psychological studies of bilingualism have focused almost exclusively. While linguists have concentrated on the situational determinants of code-switching, psychologists have focused on the bilingual's ability to keep his two language systems separate. In the process, the phenomenon of code mixing, that is, switching between languages in an unchanged speech situation and within a single sentence, has been neglected. However, recent linguistic studies have shown that the use of both languages in the same discourse and even within a single sentence is quite common. Such code-mixing has been shown to be an effective, versatile communicative strategy, subject to a number of interlingual syntactic constraints. Discussion focuses on some of these constraints, showing that they have implications for a psychological model of bilingual information processing. Emphasis is placed on: (1) their relevance to issues such as the single versus separate storage hypothesis, (2) the language switch model and models of sentence production, (3) the psychological reality of syntactic constituents, and (4) the relationship between language units and thought units.

"Sight translation. Theoretical considerations and eye tracking research" is the first Polish-language monograph devoted to sight translation one of the few, according to analyses, monographs on the world market. It is also the first monograph on the Polish market in the field of the methodology of eye tracking in translation studies. However, the novelty of the monograph is not only a theoretical description, but also empirical (eye tracking) research in the field of sight translation, and that it considers exploratory and cognitive possibilities of the eye tracking method in translation studies - based on the results of extensive eye tracking analyses by verifying the used eye movement and physiological parameters on various units of analysis, thus contributing to the outline of the methodological framework of  eye tracking translation studies in Poland (so far, the articles published in this field in Poland have not addressed such methodological issues as the validity of the use and verification of selected eye tracking parameters, their limitations and verification of units of analysis).


„Tłumaczenie a vista. Rozważania teoretyczne i badania eyetrackingowe” to pierwsza polskojęzyczna  monografia poświęcona tłumaczeniu a vista i jedna z niewielu, jak wynika z przeprowadzonych analiz, monografii na rynku światowym. Jest to również pierwsza na rynku polskim monografia z zakresu translatoryki okulograficznej.
Novum monografii polega jednak nie tylko na opisie naukowym, jak również badaniom empriycznych (eyetrackingowym) w zakresie tłumaczenia a vista, a również, iż rozważa eksploracyjne i poznawcze możliwości metody eyetrackingowej w translatoryce – w oparciu o wyniki obszernych analiz okulograficznych, weryfikując wykorzystywane parametry okoruchowe i różne jednostki analizy, przyczyniając się tym samym do zarysowania ram metodologicznych translatoryki okulograficznej w Polsce (jak dotąd artykuły ukazujące się w zakresie translatoryki okulograficznej w Polsce, nie poruszały takich zagadnień metodologicznych, jak: zasadność użycia i weryfikacja wybieranych parametrów okulograficznych, weryfikacja jednostek analizy czy ograniczenia wnioskowania na podstawie stosowanej metody).

Z recenzji wydawniczej prof. A. Małgorzewicz:
Problematyka podjęta w monografii odpowiada w doskonały sposób potrzebom współczesnej translatoryki. Tłumaczenie a vista stanowi bowiem rodzaj tłumaczeń, który nie został jeszcze dostatecznie zbadany. Monika Płużyczka lukę tę wypełnia, wnosząc swój indywidualny i ważny wkład w rozwój dyscypliny. Autorka stawia właściwe i dojrzałe naukowo tezy w oparciu o poprawnie dobraną literaturę przedmiotu (…). W modelowy sposób prowadzi wnikliwą analizę problemów i zjawisk specyficznych dla tłumaczeń a vista, z poczynionych obserwacji wyciąga logiczne wnioski, wskazując na istnienie zakresów, które dotąd nie znalazły się w polu zainteresowań translatoryków. W prowadzonej dyskusji Autorka korzysta z ogromnej ilości publikacji obcojęzycznych. (…) Przybliża polskiemu czytelnikowi stan badań translatorycznych prowadzonych w innych krajach, innych paradygmatach badawczych, dzięki czemu dyskusja ta jest rzetelna, wyczerpująca, wielowymiarowa i kompleksowa. Zastosowany aparat badawczy, badania empiryczne, ich konstrukcja i sposób przeprowadzenia mają cha-rakter modelowo-wzorcowy. Monografia obfituje w terminy, które są autorskimi propozycjami Moniki Płużyczki. Wielkim atutem pracy jest fakt, iż została napisana właśnie w języku polskim. Dzięki temu monografia stanowi znaczący wkład w prowadzoną dyskusję na tematy właściwe wyzwaniom translatoryki uprawianej przez polskich badaczy (…). Docenić należy również wartość aplikatywną przedstawionych w monografii Moniki Płużyczki wyników badań dla translodydaktyki akademickiej. Tłumaczenie a vista, do tej pory pomijane w programach kształcenia translatorycznego, dzięki recenzowanej publikacji ma szanse znaleźć w nich swoje stałe miejsce. Monografia Moniki Płużyczki jest bardzo oczekiwaną publikacją. Wyniki zaprezentowanych badań posiadają niekwestionowaną moc argumentacyjną i zapewne będą ważnym elementem w dyskusji prowadzonej obecnie przez translatoryków, a właśnie takich argumentów-argumentów popartych badaniami empirycz-nymi dzisiejsza translatoryka potrzebuje.

"This study addresses the basic structure of playfulness in adults from a psycho-lexical approach and its relationship with the sense of humor. Using items derived from a corpus analysis of written accounts in the German language, five factors were derived (N = 195); i.e., (a) cheerful-engaged; (b) whimsical; (c) creative-loving; (d) intellectual; and (e) impulsive. Their contents strongly overlap in comparison with an earlier study using this approach.
However, the intellectual component was only low and the impulsive component was uncorrelated with two current measures of adult playfulness. The question arises as to whether these aspects exist only as components in the implicit psychological and linguistic theories. The sense of humor was most strongly related with the cheerful-engaged factor while some “humor skills” were particularly related to other factors; e.g., finding humor under stress with the intellectual component. This study helps toward a better understanding of the basic structure of playfulness in adults."

У статті проаналізовано асоціативне поле стимулу ГАЗЕТА, отримане в результаті вільного асоціативного експерименту; установлено семантичні сфери асоціативного поля. Також проведено зіставний аналіз результатів вільного (2012 р.) та цілеспрямованого (1989 р.) асоціативних експериментів.

Language groups making decisions about how to write their language must consider not only how to represent different sounds, but also how to use spaces. Globally, languages that use the Latin script typically use spaces between words, as in European languages. Most linguists writing guidelines for orthography development assume that word spacing is optimal, and focus instead on exactly where word boundaries should be located.

In Mainland Southeast Asia, the use of spaces is quite diverse, ranging from spaces between every syllable for Vietnamese to no spaces at all for Chinese. As a result, groups often consider a number of options for spacing. While much research has compared reading speeds for word-spaced and unspaced text, the effects of word spacing and syllable spacing on reading speed have rarely been compared.

Three experiments were performed to compare people reading word-spaced texts and syllable-spaced texts in Hmong Daw, using the Latin script orthography known as RPA. RPA text is commonly found in both word-spaced and syllable-spaced formats. Readers in both the United States and Thailand were tested.

The first experiment, with Hmong readers in the US, examined the effect of spacing style on reading speed for a set of stories. In the second experiment, Hmong readers in Thailand read the same stories as the first experiment, but the stories were presented and timed one sentence at a time. In the third experiment, readers in both the US and Thailand read isolated polysyllabic words with and without intersyllable spaces.

The results showed no overall difference in reading speed between the two spacing styles when people read naturally connected stories. However, syllable spacing was found to be faster than word spacing for the test of isolated words, and for sentences with polysyllabic words that readers had not yet seen within the test. Meanwhile, pilot testing in Akha showed a potential advantage to syllable spacing over word spacing.

In addition, an analysis of the spacing practices of Hmong writers was performed, to see which word-related factors predict whether writers are more likely to write polysyllabic words as a unit or with intersyllable spaces. The test of the reading of isolated polysyllabic words in Hmong Daw found various orthographic, morphological, and syntactic factors that make words easier to read as a unit or with spaces between each syllable. Together, these results provide the basis for suggestions of which types of words tend to benefit most from joining or separation with spaces. The results suggest that a purely linguistic definition of a word does not necessarily correlate with the optimal spacing style for ease of reading in Hmong Daw.

The lack of an advantage for word spacing in both Hmong Daw and Akha, and the advantage for syllable spacing in certain contexts, is contrary to the common assumption among linguists involved in orthography development that word spacing is the optimal spacing choice for all languages. This study suggests that syllable spacing is a valid option for certain languages in the right sociolinguistic situations.

Little has been researched in translation studies about the reaction of interpreters when faced with speaker’s errors. Existent models of simultaneous interpreting can be used as a tool to explain interpreter’s cognitive processes when faced with an error. These phenomena can be approached from a quantitative and qualitative point of view by measuring response time and EVS. Four subjects interpreted a series of texts, both with and without lexical errors. Speech analysis was carried out considering response time, EVS and the differential between the speaker’s and the interpreter’s production time. The results show that interpreters correct most of the lexical errors, although not always consciously. A series of phenomena potentially associated with response time, EVS and speaker-interpreter differential was identified. The hypothesis that there is an influence of the speaker’s error on the production and response time of the interpreter is confirmed.

THIS STUDY HAS NOW EXPIRED. THE POST IS BEING KEPT HERE FOR PUBLIC OUTREACH PURPOSES. Research participants needed: L1-Greek adult native speakers of Greek for judgements study!

(This project has been granted Ethics approval by The University of Edinburgh PPLS REC: #429-1819/3.)

Three experiments examine the syntactic and semantic processing of idioms in English, French, and Tunisian Arabic and compare these processing cross-linguistically with a priming procedure. Results from experiment 1 and 2 reveal that there is a syntactic priming effect of idioms in Tunisian Arabic, French, and English. It is worth noting, however, that it was less significant in English. Experiment 3 concerned with the semantic priming, showing that there is no semantic priming effects as subjects named equally abstract and concrete nouns with no difference in their reaction time. The results from these experiments entail the independence of the syntactic processor, thus, adhering to one central aspect of the modular view of language processing. This study eventually sustains the universality of parsing.

The acceptability judgment task is a crucial method in  experimental syntax. This study compares two forms of the task –Likert-scale and magnitude estimations – in the investigation of the learnability of the English resultative construction for bilinguals of Brazilian Portuguese and English. The resultative poses a challenge for this population, as not only must they learn the syntax-semantics mapping unlicensed in their L1, but they must learn event structure constraints that govern such construction in the L2. The results indicate that while both controlled acceptability judgment tasks attest the learnability of the construction, the alleged superiority of magnitude estimations was not verified.

Psycholinguistics, as its name suggests, encompasses the psychology of language as well as linguistic psychology. Although they might sound similar, they are actually distinct. The first is a branch of linguistics, while the latter is a subdivision of psychology. In the psychology of language, the means are the research tools adopted from psychology and the end is the study of language. However, in linguistic psychology, the means are the data derived from linguistic studies and the end is psychology. This chapter focuses on the first of these two components; that is, the psychology of language. The goal of this chapter is to give a state of the art perspective on the small but growing body of research using psycholinguistic tools to study Persian with a focus on two areas: presenting longstanding debates about the mental lexicon, language impairments and language processing; and introducing a source of data for the linguistic analysis of Persian.

Psycholinguistics is an interdisciplinary field of study in which the goals are to understand how people acquire language, how people use language to speak and understand one another, and how language is represented and processed in the brain

The present article provides evidence suggesting that general pragmatic accounts of orderliness in the temporal interpretation of VP coordination may be somewhat biased by the choice of typically script-based (con)sequential examples. Most of the discussion in the literature has been based on examples from a single language, mostly relying on the intuitions of the author(s) of the paper. On the basis of a cross-linguistic, empirical approach to language understanding, we have tested different language speakers’ preferred interpretation of the temporal relation holding in contextualized VP conjunctive sentences that are pragmatically not typically consequential or resultative. Under these conditions, our results show a preference for temporal overlap interpretations across languages. We also find that language-specific properties modify this general bias, thus supporting a competition-based account of relating form to meaning.