Methodological Considerations in Morphological Processing Research

This book falls in the broad subject area of psycholinguistics and second-language acquisition. More specifically, this book is written for researchers stepping into the field of morphological processing so that they are not overwhelmed by the large number of individual studies and do not lose sight of the whole picture. With a comprehensive review of the relevant factors that first- and second-language morphological processing researchers need to take into consideration, including material- and procedure-related factors, participant individual differences, and participant group-level differences, this book is a useful theoretical reference work for morphological processing researchers. By considering the various potential confounding factors reviewed in this book, researchers are in a better position to more scientifically and meticulously reduce or eliminate the effects of potential covariates so that they can focus on their independent variables of interest. It may also help researchers in evaluating previous studies and their findings and whether or not these studies may have failed to consider possible confounding factors.

Zhaohong Wu is Assistant Professor of Linguistics in the School of English and International Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University. She holds a PhD in Linguistics from University of Pittsburgh, USA. Her research interests are in psycholinguistics and second-language acquisition. Her current research focuses on the comparison between L1 and advanced L2 morphological processing to understand whether native speakers and advanced L2 learners process morphologically complex words in qualitatively the same way. She has published in journals such as Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Second Language Research, and The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.