Automation in Subject-Verb Agreement Error Detection: A Study of Children and Adults

This research examines the development of expertise in the detection of agreement errors between a verb & a subject noun. Analysis of the performance of primary & secondary school children & adults in a task consisting of detecting agreement errors in sentences presented one by one on a computer screen indicates that (1) the detection of agreement errors is undertaken through a monitoring system; (2) this monitoring system is used to pinpoint configurations that might be incorrect; (3) an algorithm that verifies the given agreement follows the aforementioned detection; 4) expertise in revision results in an evolution of the monitoring system employed. With experience in writing, this monitoring would unconsciously draw on the presence of co-occurrences between morphemes (ie, an -nt inflection associated by proximity with an -s inflection). The most plausible interpretation of these results is that reading & writing facilitate storage of special co-occurrences between such morphemes & that detection activity, when revision is carried out in cognitively costly conditions, benefits from this implicit learning. 3 Tables, 4 Appendixes, 45 References. Adapted from the source document