• Title/Summary/Keyword: Language Comprehension

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Comparison of Cognitive Loads between Koreans and Foreigners in the Reading Process

  • Im, Jung Nam;Min, Seung Nam;Cho, Sung Moon
    • Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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    • v.35 no.4
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    • pp.293-305
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    • 2016
  • Objective: This study aims to measure cognitive load levels by analyzing the EEG of Koreans and foreigners, when they read a Korean text with care selected by level from the grammar and vocabulary aspects, and compare the cognitive load levels through quantitative values. The study results can be utilized as basic data for more scientific approach, when Korean texts or books are developed, and an evaluation method is built, when the foreigners encounter them for learning or an assignment. Background: Based on 2014, the number of the foreign students studying in Korea was 84,801, and they increase annually. Most of them are from Asian region, and they come to Korea to enter a university or a graduate school in Korea. Because those foreign students aim to learn within Universities in Korea, they receive Korean education from their preparation for study in Korea. To enter a university in Korea, they must acquire grade 4 or higher level in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK), or they need to complete a certain educational program at each university's affiliated language institution. In such a program, the learners of the Korean language receive Korean education based on texts, except speaking domain, and the comprehension of texts can determine their academic achievements in studying after they enter their desired schools (Jeon, 2004). However, many foreigners, who finish a language course for the short-term, and need to start university study, cannot properly catch up with university classes requiring expertise with the vocabulary and grammar levels learned during the language course. Therefore, reading education, centered on a strategy to understand university textbooks regarded as top level reading texts to the foreigners, is necessary (Kim and Shin, 2015). This study carried out an experiment from a perspective that quantitative data on the readers of the main player of reading education and teaching materials need to be secured to back up the need for reading education for university study learners, and scientifically approach educational design. Namely, this study grasped the difficulty level of reading through the measurement of cognitive loads indicated in the reading activity of each text by dividing the difficulty of a teaching material (book) into eight levels, and the main player of reading into Koreans and foreigners. Method: To identify cognitive loads indicated upon reading Korean texts with care by Koreans and foreigners, this study recruited 16 participants (eight Koreans and eight foreigners). The foreigners were limited to the language course students studying the intermediate level Korean course at university-affiliated language institutions within Seoul Metropolitan Area. To identify cognitive load, as they read a text by level selected from the Korean books (difficulty: eight levels) published by King Sejong Institute (Sejonghakdang.org), the EEG sensor was attached to the frontal love (Fz) and occipital lobe (Oz). After the experiment, this study carried out a questionnaire survey to measure subjective evaluation, and identified the comprehension and difficulty on grammar and words. To find out the effects on schema that may affect text comprehension, this study controlled the Korean texts, and measured EEG and subjective satisfaction. Results: To identify brain's cognitive load, beta band was extracted. As a result, interactions (Fz: p =0.48; Oz: p =0.00) were revealed according to Koreans and foreigners, and difficulty of the text. The cognitive loads of Koreans, the readers whose mother tongue is Korean, were lower in reading Korean texts than those of the foreigners, and the foreigners' cognitive loads became higher gradually according to the difficulty of the texts. From the text four, which is intermediate level in difficulty, remarkable differences started to appear in comparison of the Koreans and foreigners in the beginner's level text. In the subjective evaluation, interactions were revealed according to the Koreans and foreigners and text difficulty (p =0.00), and satisfaction was lower, as the difficulty of the text became higher. Conclusion: When there was background knowledge in reading, namely schema was formed, the comprehension and satisfaction of the texts were higher, although higher levels of vocabulary and grammar were included in the texts than those of the readers. In the case of a text in which the difficulty of grammar was felt high in the subjective evaluation, foreigners' cognitive loads were also high, which shows the result of the loads' going up higher in proportion to the increase of difficulty. This means that the grammar factor functions as a stress factor to the foreigners' reading comprehension. Application: This study quantitatively evaluated the cognitive loads of Koreans and foreigners through EEG, based on readers and the text difficulty, when they read Korean texts. The results of this study can be used for making Korean teaching materials or Korean education content and topic selection for foreigners. If research scope is expanded to reading process using an eye-tracker, the reading education program and evaluation method for foreigners can be developed on the basis of quantitative values.

An Evaluation of Listening Studies concerning Discourse Signaling Cues: Focus on Research Designs

  • Jung, Euen-Hyuk
    • English Language & Literature Teaching
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.55-74
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    • 2009
  • Although a considerable amount of research on discourse signaling cues has been conducted in reading, little attention has been paid to such cues in the area of listening. Moreover, despite the solid evidence showing that cues have beneficial effects for reading comprehension, L2 listening research has produced mixed findings about the role of cues. Such discrepancies among these findings might be due in part to inadequate research methodologies as well as the idiosyncratic features of their experimental designs. However, no study, to date, has thoroughly examined the research designs of listening comprehension studies on cues. Consequently, this study critically evaluates the present state of research designs and reporting practices of studies investigating the role of cues in listening comprehension. The present study aims to provide insights into areas that require empirical attention and systematic investigation. It also seeks to encourage improved and refined research practices for future studies. This paper is organized as follows: It will first critically review the empirical findings regarding cues in the area of L1 listening comprehension. Second, it will present a critical evaluation of L2 listening studies on cues. Finally, it will address the major research design issues of currently available listening studies and provide suggestions for improvement in future research.

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Development of Measuring Protocol for Cognitive Ability of Elderly People for Mobile Phone (휴대전화 설계를 위한 고령자용 인지능력 측정 프로토콜 개발)

  • Kim, Jung-Yong;Cho, Eun-Ju;Cho, Young-Jin;Chung, Min-Keun
    • Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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    • v.28 no.3
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    • pp.115-123
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    • 2009
  • The purpose of this research is to develop a protocol which can quantitatively evaluate cognitive ability that is needed when elderly people use mobile phone. Since previous methods for measuring the cognitive ability of elderly people was mainly for clinical evaluation, they would not be adequate to measure cognitive ability for mobile phone development. Therefore, this study suggests cognitive areas which are necessary to use the mobile phone based on the existing evaluation tools. The cognitive areas consist of language, visuospatial ability, memory, executive function and perception. New questionnaire was developed to evaluate the individual cognitive ability for the elderly. They include 9 questions for button comprehension test, 8 for icon button comprehension test, 10 for vocabulary comprehension test, 8 for menu comprehension test, 3 for icon size test, and 2 for font size test. The protocol can be used in the field although further modification may be necessary for betterment.

Transformer-based reranking for improving Korean morphological analysis systems

  • Jihee Ryu;Soojong Lim;Oh-Woog Kwon;Seung-Hoon Na
    • ETRI Journal
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    • v.46 no.1
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    • pp.137-153
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    • 2024
  • This study introduces a new approach in Korean morphological analysis combining dictionary-based techniques with Transformer-based deep learning models. The key innovation is the use of a BERT-based reranking system, significantly enhancing the accuracy of traditional morphological analysis. The method generates multiple suboptimal paths, then employs BERT models for reranking, leveraging their advanced language comprehension. Results show remarkable performance improvements, with the first-stage reranking achieving over 20% improvement in error reduction rate compared with existing models. The second stage, using another BERT variant, further increases this improvement to over 30%. This indicates a significant leap in accuracy, validating the effectiveness of merging dictionary-based analysis with contemporary deep learning. The study suggests future exploration in refined integrations of dictionary and deep learning methods as well as using probabilistic models for enhanced morphological analysis. This hybrid approach sets a new benchmark in the field and offers insights for similar challenges in language processing applications.

Text Comprehension and Coherence Processing (글 이해와 글의 응집성 정보처리)

  • Lee, Jung-Mo
    • Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
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    • 1989.10a
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    • pp.252-256
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    • 1989
  • 글의 이해의 핵심과정이란 글에 대한 응집성있는 의미표상의 형성과정이라고 간주하고, 참조적 응집성 처리, 상위주제적 인과성 응집성 처리, 상위주제적 대비적 응집성 처리, 글 전체 구조적 응집성 처리의 특성들을 우리말 덩이글을 사용한 실험 결과들을 근거로 논하고 이와 관련하여 한국어 이해의 일반특성에 대한 논의를 제시하였다.

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Multi-level Attention Fusion Network for Machine Reading Comprehension (Multi-level Attention Fusion을 이용한 기계독해)

  • Park, Kwang-Hyeon;Na, Seung-Hoon;Choi, Yun-Su;Chang, Du-Seong
    • Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
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    • 2018.10a
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    • pp.259-262
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    • 2018
  • 기계독해의 목표는 기계가 주어진 문맥을 이해하고 문맥에 대한 질문에 대답할 수 있도록 하는 것이다. 본 논문에서는 Multi-level Attention에 정보를 효율적으로 융합 수 있는 Fusion 함수를 결합하고, Answer module에Stochastic multi-step answer를 적용하여 SQuAD dev 데이터 셋에서 EM=78.63%, F1=86.36%의 성능을 보였다.

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Comprehension and Production Processes of Korean: A Review on Psychological Research (한국어의 이해와 산출의 심리적 과정)

  • Lee, Jung-Mo;Lee, Jae-Ho;Kim, Young-Jin
    • Annual Conference on Human and Language Technology
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    • 1994.11a
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    • pp.3-22
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    • 1994
  • 한국어의 이해와 산출의 심리적 과정에 대한 인지심리학적 연구들을 개관하였다. 한국어의 통사적 구분분석처리 과정, 대용어 참조 해결 과정, 덩이글 이해와 지식구조의 활용 과정, 말실수와 글쓰기의 언어 산출 과정 등에 대한 심리학적 연구를 개관하여 주요 실험적 결과와 이론적 의의를 논하고, 이들이 앞으로의 한국어 이해와 산출 과정에 대한 인지과학적 연구에 시사하는 바를 논의하였다.

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The Effects of Advertisement-Making Activities on Young Children's Language Ability and Creativity (광고 만들기 활동이 유아의 언어능력 및 창의성에 미치는 영향)

  • Choi, Yeon-Wook;Choi, Mi-Sook
    • Korean Journal of Child Studies
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    • v.27 no.5
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    • pp.35-48
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    • 2006
  • The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of advertisement-making activities on young children's language ability and creativity. The subjects of this study were 47 five-years-old children from child care center located in Gwangju City. The collected data were analyzed by idependent t-test using SPSS Program.The results of this study were as follows; First, experimental group which conducted the advertisement-making activities showed significantly higher improvement in sub-factors of language abilities, common sense, comprehension, vocabulary ability, commonness than comparative group. Second, experimental group which conducted the advertisement-making activities showed significantly higher improvement in sub-factors of creativity, fluency, uniqueness, elaboration than comparative group. It means that the advertisement-making activities improve young children's language ability and creativity.

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This study revises Lee Hyo-seok's The Buckwheat Season, utilizing Novel Corpus, intermediate learners' level (소설텍스트의 난이도 조정 방안 연구 -이효석의 「메밀꽃 필 무렵」을 중심으로-)

  • Hwang, Hye ran
    • Journal of Korean language education
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    • v.29 no.4
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    • pp.255-294
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    • 2018
  • The Buckwheat Season, evaluated as the best of Lee Hyo-seok's literature, is one of the short stories that represent Korean literature. However, vivid literary expressions such as lyrical and beautiful depictions, figurative expressions and dialects, which show the Korean beauty, rather make learners have difficulty and become a factor that fails in reading comprehension. Thus, it is necessary to revise and present the text modified for the learners' language level. The methods of revising a literary text include the revision of linguistic elements such as cryptic vocabulary or sentence structure and the revision of the composition of the text, e.g. suggestion of characters or plot, or insertion of illustration. The methods of revising the language of the text can be divided into methods of simplification and detailing. However, in the process of revising the text, many depend on the adapter's subjective perception, not revising it with objective criteria. This paper revised the text, utilizing by the Academy of Korean Studies, , and the by the National Institute of Korean Language to secure objectivity in revising the text.

Speech and language disorders in children (소아에서 말 언어장애)

  • Chung, Hee Jung
    • Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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    • v.51 no.9
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    • pp.922-934
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    • 2008
  • Developmental language disorder is the most common developmental disability in childhood, occurring in 5-8% of preschool children. Children learn language in early childhood, and later they use language to learn. Children with language disorders are at increased risk for difficulties with reading and written language when they enter school. These problems often persist through adolescence or adulthood. Early intervention may prevent the more serious consequences of later academic problems, including learning disabilities. A child's performance in specific speech and language areas, such as phonological ability, vocabulary comprehension, and grammatical usage, is measured objectively using the most recently standardized, norm-referenced tests for a particular age group. Observation and qualitative analysis of a child's performance supplement objective test results are essential for making a diagnosis and devising a treatment plan. Emphasis on the team approach system in the evaluation of children with speech and language impairments has been increasing. Evidence-based therapeutic interventions with short-term, long-term, and functional outcome goals should be applied, because there are many examples of controversial practices that have not been validated in large, controlled trials. Following treatment intervention, periodic follow-up monitoring by a doctor is also important. In addition, a systematized national health policy for children with speech and language disorders should be provided.