Blything Liam P, Davies Robert, Cain Kate
Lancaster University.
Child Dev. 2015 Nov-Dec;86(6):1922-34. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12412. Epub 2015 Aug 26.
The present study investigated 3- to 7-year-olds' (N = 91) comprehension of two-clause sentences containing the temporal connectives before or after. The youngest children used an order of mention strategy to interpret the relation between clauses: They were more accurate when the presentation order matched the chronological order of events: "He ate his lunch, before he played in the garden" (chronological) versus "Before he played in the garden, he ate his lunch" (reverse). Between 4 and 6 years, performance was influenced by a combination of factors that influenced processing load: connective type and presentation order. An independent measure of working memory was predictive of performance. The study concludes that the memory demands of some sentence structures limits young children's comprehension of sentences containing temporal connectives.
本研究调查了91名3至7岁儿童对包含时间连接词“之前”或“之后”的双从句句子的理解。年龄最小的儿童使用按提及顺序的策略来解释从句之间的关系：当呈现顺序与事件的时间顺序相匹配时，他们的表现更准确：“他吃了午饭，然后在花园里玩耍”（时间顺序）与“在他在花园里玩耍之前，他吃了午饭”（颠倒顺序）。在4至6岁之间，表现受到影响处理负荷的多种因素的综合影响：连接词类型和呈现顺序。工作记忆的一项独立测量指标可预测表现。该研究得出结论，某些句子结构的记忆需求限制了幼儿对包含时间连接词的句子的理解。
