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RESEARCH PRODUCT
Cognitive Overload and Orthographic Errors: When Cognitive Overload Enhances Subject–Verb Agreement Errors. A Study in French Written Language
Michel FayolPierre LargyPatrick Lemairesubject
050101 languages & linguisticsmedia_common.quotation_subject05 social sciencesOrthographic projectionExperimental and Cognitive PsychologyVerb06 humanities and the arts050105 experimental psychologyLinguisticsAgreementTest (assessment)Subject (grammar)0501 psychology and cognitive sciencesWritten languagePsychologyGeneral PsychologyCognitive loadmedia_commondescription
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 task: click counting (Experiment 2) or serial recall of series of five words presented immediately after the sentences (Experiments 1 and 3). Participants showed errors when performing two concurrent tasks and almost no error when recalling isolated sentences. As expected, errors occurred when N1 (Pr1) and N1 (Pr2) mismatched in number. The results are consistent with our hypothesis and with a functional approach of written composition.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994-05-01 | The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A |