Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30653524›Full record

ArticlePloS one2019

Children and adults successfully comprehend subject-only sentences online.

Pooja Paul, Jayden Ziegler, Elizabeth Chalmers, Jesse Snedeker

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PloS one, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Pooja PaulDepartment of Linguistics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States of America.ORCID 0000-0003-1805-7315
Jayden ZieglerDepartment of Linguistics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States of America.ORCID 0000-0002-3861-5145
Elizabeth ChalmersDepartment of Linguistics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States of America.
Jesse SnedekerDepartment of Linguistics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States of America.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In many offline studies, children show selectively better comprehension of sentences with the focus particle only when it modifies the object argument (Jane only ate an apple) than they do when it modifies the subject argument (Only Jane ate an apple). Here we explore the nature of this asymmetry by examining performance in a different kind of task: the moment-to-moment comprehension of unambiguous sentences. If past errors reflect a fundamental difference in representation or complexity of computation, we would expect the same asymmetry in this task. We observed that adults were able to successfully predict the target referent for both types of only-sentences, as indicated by anticipatory looks, while 6- to 8-year-old children could do so only for subject-modifying only-sentences. These findings suggest that much of the asymmetry in past work may be due to task demands. We discuss the implications of these results for children's syntactic and pragmatic development.

Indexed as

AdultChildComprehensionFemaleHumansLanguageLinguisticsMaleOnline SystemsSemantics

Identifiers

PMID30653524
PMCPMC6336383

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.