Faculty of Philosophy and Sciences, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Speech, Language and Hearing Science Department, Campus of Marília, São Paulo, Brazil.
Psychological Neuroscience Lab, CIPsi, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
PLoS One. 2020 Jul 30;15(7):e0236388. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236388. eCollection 2020.
In this study we investigated a set of 100 sentence contexts and their cloze probabilities to develop a database of linguistic stimuli for Brazilian Portuguese children and adolescents. The study also examined age-related changes on cloze probabilities, and specified the predictor effects of age and cloze probabilities on idiosyncratic responses and errors (semantic, syntactic, and other errors). Finally, the study also aimed to shed light on cultural effects on word generation by comparing Brazilian and Portuguese sentence databases.
361 typically developing monolingual Brazilian speakers, with ages ranging from 7 to 18 years, participated in the study. The cloze task was composed by 100 sentence contexts, grounded on the European Portuguese database. Responses were classified as valid (correct) or invalid (semantic, syntactic, and other-type errors). Statistical analyses were based on mixed-effects logistic models.
Sixty-three sentences met criteria for high cloze probabilities, 30 for medium cloze, and 7 for low cloze. Age was a significant predictor of idiosyncratic responses, semantic and syntactic errors: older participants were less likely to produce idiosyncratic responses, as well as semantic and syntactic errors. Cloze probability values were concordant in the Brazilian and Portuguese databases for 31 out of 49 (83.7%) high-cloze sentences and for 7 low-cloze sentences.
In this study we have provided a database with cloze probability values for a set of 100 sentence-final word contexts for Brazilian Portuguese children and adolescents. Results showed that both age and sentence contextual level predicted sentence final word completion. Older participants were more likely to choose more consistently the same final word, with the contextual level of a given sentence also contributing to the final word selection. Age should be controlled for in future studies probing semantic processing with this set of sentences.
本研究调查了 100 个句子语境及其完形概率，为巴西葡萄牙儿童和青少年开发了语言刺激数据库。该研究还考察了完形概率的年龄相关性变化，并确定了年龄和完形概率对独特反应和错误（语义、句法和其他错误）的预测作用。最后，该研究还旨在通过比较巴西和葡萄牙句子数据库，揭示文化对词汇生成的影响。
361 名年龄在 7 至 18 岁之间的典型发展的单语巴西人参与了这项研究。完形任务由 100 个句子语境组成，基于欧洲葡萄牙语数据库。反应分为有效（正确）和无效（语义、句法和其他类型错误）。统计分析基于混合效应逻辑模型。
63 个句子的完形概率符合标准，30 个句子的完形概率中等，7 个句子的完形概率低。年龄是独特反应、语义和句法错误的重要预测因子：年龄较大的参与者不太可能产生独特反应，以及语义和句法错误。巴西和葡萄牙数据库中 49 个高完形概率句子中有 31 个（83.7%）和 7 个低完形概率句子的完形概率值一致。
本研究为巴西葡萄牙儿童和青少年提供了一套 100 个句子结尾词语境的完形概率值数据库。结果表明，年龄和句子语境水平都可以预测句子结尾词的完成。年龄较大的参与者更有可能选择更一致的最后一个词，同时句子的语境水平也有助于最后一个词的选择。在未来使用这组句子进行语义处理的研究中，应控制年龄因素。
