The L-maze task and web-based data collection in second language sentence processing research

In recent years, an increasing number of studies on sentence processing have used web-based data collection and the L-maze task. Web-based data collection has become particularly popular since the coronavirus pandemic, when access to laboratory-based experiments was severely restricted. In the L-maze task, participants read sentences word by word, with each word presented alongside a pseudoword that does not continue the sentence. During the task, participants need to select a word that continues the sentence. Previous research has shown that both web-based data collection and the L-maze task are useful for investigating first language sentence processing. However, little is known about their usefulness for second language sentence processing research. To address this gap in the literature, I conducted replication experiments using the web-based L-maze and self-paced reading (SPR) tasks, and investigated whether these tasks could detect garden path and gender mismatch effects during the processing of locally ambiguous sentences. The results showed these effects in both tasks, with the effects being more localised in the L-maze task. A prospective power analysis suggested that these tasks would be effective for detecting these effects, and that the L-maze task would be more reliable than the SPR task for detecting gender mismatch effects. These findings suggest that web-based data collection and the L-maze task are potentially useful tools for investigating second language sentence processing.