Cognitive Overload and Orthographic Errors: When Cognitive Overload Enhances Subject–Verb Agreement Errors. A Study in French Written Language

Three experiments were carried out to test the hypothesis that cognitive overload enhances the occurrence of subject-verb agreement errors in French. Highly educated adults were presented orally with sentences they were required to write down. The sentences were of the types “N1 de N2 V” (Noun 1 of Noun 2 Verb: Le chien des voisins arrive/The neighbours’ dog is arriving) versus “Prl Pr2 V” (Pronoun 1 Pronoun 2 Verb: Il les aime/He likes them). In these sentences, N1 (Pr1) and N2 (Pr2) matched or mismatched in number. In the three experiments, the sentences had to be recalled either in an isolated condition (i.e. every presented sentence had to be immediately recalled) or with a concurrent …