1. Introduction

The role of structural priming effect in language comprehension was introduced, and it was pointed out that its impact is not limited to the field of language cognition, but may also extend to other cognitive domains. At the same time, the mechanism of cross cognitive domain structural priming and its relationship with human language cognitive ability and other cognitive abilities were explored. It was proposed to study the influence of second language proficiency and cognitive flexibility on the visual spatial graphic structure priming of English ambiguous relative clauses in order to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanism of cross cognitive domain structural priming.

2. Theoretical background

Deeply explored the controversy in the field of psycholinguistics regarding whether language cognition is independent of other cognitive modules. Neuroimaging evidence shows that syntactic processing in language cognition overlaps with other cognitive domains, such as Chiang et al.'s study which found that Broca's area is responsible for both sequence structure processing in language and music. The study of cross domain structural priming effect reveals the similarity between mathematical formulas and language structures, indicating that different cognitive domains may share cognitive mechanisms. Current research mainly focuses on the existence and universality of priming effects, with less in-depth investigation of influencing factors. The aim of this study is to explore the impact of second language proficiency and cognitive flexibility on cross cognitive domain structural priming, in order to enhance understanding of the shared representation and processing mechanisms of second language syntactic structures.

3. Research methods

A cross domain structural priming experiment using eye tracking technology was introduced to observe the effects of second language proficiency and cognitive flexibility on priming effects. The experiment adopts a 2x2 intergroup design, with second language proficiency and cognitive flexibility as independent variables, divided into high and low groups. The subjects were first-year undergraduate and graduate students majoring in English at the university. Participants with different cognitive flexibility were selected through the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, and the differences in second language proficiency were confirmed using the Oxford English Proficiency Test. The experimental materials include 24 pairs of graphic structure target ambiguous sentences, and three conditions were designed: high hanging start, low hanging start, and baseline start. The experimental process uses Eye Link 1000 to record the key reactions and eye movements of the subjects, including nine point calibration, startup reading, comprehension question selection, and other steps. Data collection and analysis focused on three areas of interest for target ambiguous sentences, using five eye tracking indicators and conducting statistical analysis using SPSS 26.0, excluding unanswered attempts and abnormal data.

4. Experimental results

The experimental results showed that in the distribution of target sentence comprehension, participants generally exhibited a preference for high attachment comprehension, and the proportion of high attachment comprehension under high attachment priming conditions was significantly higher than that under baseline priming conditions. The analysis of structural priming effect shows that when the affiliation relationship of graphic structure is consistent with the affiliation relationship of second language ambiguous relative clauses, it will reduce the processing difficulty of the target sentence. The analysis of the impact of second language proficiency and cognitive flexibility on priming effects found significant main and interactive effects on some eye movement indicators, especially under low cognitive flexibility conditions, with significant differences between high and low second language proficiency groups. These results reveal the role and interactive effects of second language proficiency and cognitive flexibility in the initiation of cross cognitive domain structures.

5. Discussion

This study explored the priming effect of graphic structure on English ambiguous relative clauses through eye tracking technology, and analyzed the impact of second language proficiency and cognitive flexibility on priming effect. Research has found that participants tend to understand second language ambiguous sentences in a highly dependent manner, and graphic structures have a structural priming effect on the understanding of ambiguous sentences, indicating that there may be a shared structural processing mechanism between the visual spatial domain and the language domain. The representation theory can be used to explain this phenomenon, that is, the abstract representations formed by the subjects during the processing of graphic structures may affect the subsequent understanding of ambiguous relative clauses.

6. Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the research results, confirms the existence of cross cognitive domain structural priming effects, and reveals the possible sharing of structural representations between the visual spatial domain and the language cognitive domain, as well as the sharing of processing mechanisms between language cognitive abilities and other cognitive abilities. The study also found that second language proficiency and cognitive flexibility jointly affect the priming effect. The higher the second language proficiency, the higher the cognitive flexibility, and the stronger the priming effect. Moreover, cognitive flexibility performance moderates the impact of second language proficiency on priming effect. These findings provide empirical evidence for the domain universality of cross domain structural priming effects and advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying their generation. However, there are limitations to the study, such as insufficient number of participants, incomplete significant differences in eye movement indicators, and limited coverage of the study population. Future research needs to be further validated under different subject populations and experimental conditions to obtain more universal conclusions.