Studying Individual Differences in Language Comprehension: The Challenges of Item-Level Variability and Well-Matched Control Conditions

Journal of Cognition · 5 authors, 3 centres

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This psycholinguistic experiment using an ambiguity resolution task demonstrated that while group-level effects of lexical ambiguity on accuracy and response times are robust, individual differences in the ambiguity effect are only detectable on accuracy, not response times.

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Blott et al. present a case study investigating the methodological challenges of adapting group-level psycholinguistic experiments for individual-differences research, using an ambiguity resolution task with picture selection probes. Participants read narratives containing ambiguous or unambiguous target words and selected a matching picture at critical points. Group-level analyses replicated the subordinate-bias effect, with lower accuracy (M = 0.93 vs. 0.96, p = .02) and longer response times (M = 879.47 ms vs. 781.73 ms, p < .001) in Ambiguous versus Unambiguous (item-matched) conditions. Mixed-effects models revealed systematic individual differences in overall task performance (accuracy: χ²(1) = 72.24, p < .001; RT: χ²(1) = 1086.9, p < .001) and in the ambiguity effect on accuracy (χ²(2) = 8.76, p = .013), but not on response times (χ²(2) = 4.20, p = .122). The authors highlight that carefully matched item-level control conditions, necessary for group-level inference, constrain the stimuli available for individual-differences designs.

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research methods

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ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10487189

Studying Individual Differences in Language Comprehension: The Challenges of Item-Level Variability and Well-Matched Control Conditions

Journal of Cognition

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ABSTRACT

Translating experimental tasks that were designed to investigate differences between conditions at the group-level into valid and reliable instruments to measure individual differences in cognitive skills is challenging ( Hedge et al., 2018 ; Rouder et al., 2019 ; Rouder & Haaf, 2019 ). For psycholinguists, the additional complexities associated with selecting or constructing language stimuli, and the need for appropriate well-matched baseline conditions make this endeavour particularly complex. In a typical experiment, a process-of-interest (e.g. ambiguity resolution) is targeted by contrasting performance in an experimental condition with performance in a well-matched control condition. In many cases, careful between-condition matching precludes the same participant from encountering all stimulus items. Unfortunately, solutions that work for group-level research (e.g. constructing counterbalanced experiment versions) are inappropriate for individual-differences designs. As a case study, we report an ambiguity resolution experiment that illustrates the steps that researchers can take to address this issue and assess whether their measurement instrument is both valid and reliable. On the basis of our findings, we caution against the widespread approach of using datasets from group-level studies to also answer important questions about individual differences.

CITATION EXPORT

Lena M. Blott, Anna E. Gowenlock, Rogier Kievit et al.. Studying Individual Differences in Language Comprehension: The Challenges of Item-Level Variability and Well-Matched Control Conditions. Journal of Cognition. (2023). https://doi.org/10.5334/joc.317

AUTHORS

5 · 3 CENTRES

Lena M. Blott, Anna E. Gowenlock, Rogier Kievit, Kate Nation, Jennifer M. Rodd

1Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, UK
2Cognitive Neuroscience Department, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
3Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK