Subjects are not all alike: eye-tracking the agent preference in Spanish

Vista sencilla de ítem
dc.contributor.authorGómez Vidal, Beatriz
dc.contributor.authorArantzeta Pérez, Miren
dc.contributor.authorLaka Mugarza, Jon Paul
dc.contributor.authorLaka Mugarza, Itziar
dc.date.accessioned2025-05-23T12:19:02Z
dc.date.available2025-05-23T12:19:02Z
dc.date.issued2022-08-03
dc.date.updated2025-05-23T12:19:02Z
dc.description.abstractExperimental research on argument structure has reported mixed results regarding the processing of unaccusative and unergative predicates. Using eye tracking in the visual world paradigm, this study seeks to fill a gap in the literature by presenting new evidence of the processing distinction between agent and theme subjects. We considered two hypotheses. First, the Unaccusative Hypothesis states that unaccusative (theme) subjects involve a more complex syntactic representation than unergative (agent) subjects. It predicts a delayed reactivation of unaccusative subjects compared to unergatives after the presentation of the verb. Second, the Agent First Hypothesis states that the first ambiguous NP of a sentence will preferably be interpreted as an agent due to an attentional preference to agents over themes. It predicts a larger reactivation of agent subjects than themes. We monitored the time course of gaze fixations of 44 native speakers across a visual display while processing sentences with unaccusative, unergative and transitive verbs. One of the pictures in the visual display was semantically related to the sentential subject. We analyzed fixation patterns in three different time frames: the verb frame, the post-verb frame, and the global post-verbal frame. Results indicated that sentential subjects across the three conditions were significantly activated when participants heard the verb; this is compatible with observing a post-verbal reactivation effect. Time course and magnitude of the gaze-fixation patterns are fully compatible with the predictions made by the Agent First Hypothesis. Thus, we report new evidence for (a) a processing distinction between unaccusative and unergative predicates in sentence comprehension, and (b) an attentional preference towards agents over themes, reflected by a larger reactivation effect in agent subjects.en
dc.description.sponsorshipSpanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (BGV, FPU18/04268; BGV, MA & IL, PID2019-104016GB-I00); the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) (MA, ESPDOC18/74); the Basque Department of Education, Universities and Research (BGV, MA & IL, IT1439-22); and the BBVA Foundation for Researchers and Cultural Creators (MA, 2021)en
dc.identifier.citationGómez-Vidal, B., Arantzeta, M., Laka, J. P., & Laka, I. (2022). Subjects are not all alike: eye-tracking the agent preference in Spanish. PLoS ONE, 17(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0272211
dc.identifier.doi10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0272211
dc.identifier.eissn1932-6203
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14454/2821
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherPublic Library of Science
dc.rights© 2022 Gómez-Vidal et al.
dc.titleSubjects are not all alike: eye-tracking the agent preference in Spanishen
dc.typejournal article
dcterms.accessRightsopen access
oaire.citation.issue8
oaire.citation.titlePLoS ONE
oaire.citation.volume17
oaire.licenseConditionhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
oaire.versionVoR
Archivos
Bloque original
Mostrando 1 - 1 de 1
Miniatura
Nombre:
gomez_subjects_2022.pdf
Tamaño:
1.58 MB
Formato:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Descargar
Colecciones
Artículos