Hemispheric asymmetries in semantic processing: evidence from false memories for ambiguous words

We used fMRI to investigate competition during language production in two word production tasks: object naming and color naming of achromatic line drawings. Generally, fMRI activation was higher for color naming. The line drawings were followed by a word (the distractor word) that referred to either the object, a related object, or an unrelated object. The effect of the distractor word on the BOLD response was qualitatively different for the two tasks. The activation pattern suggests two different kinds of competition during lexical retrieval: (1) Task-relevant responses (e.g., red in color naming) compete with task-irrelevant responses (i.e., the object’s name). This competition effect was dominant in prefrontal cortex. (2) Multiple task-relevant responses (i.e., target word and distractor word) compete for selection. This competition effect was dominant in ventral temporal cortex. This study provides further evidence for the distinct roles of frontal and temporal cortex in language production, while highlighting the effects of competition, albeit from different sources, in both regions.     

Relational memory during infancy: evidence from eye tracking

Here we report evidence from a new eye‐tracking measure of relational memory that suggests that 9‐month‐old infants can encode memories in terms of the relations among items, a function putatively subserved by the hippocampus. Infants learned about the association between faces that were superimposed on unique scenic backgrounds. During test trials, infants were shown three faces presented on a familiar scene. All three faces were equally familiar; however, one had been presented with the test background earlier. Visual behavior was recorded continuously using a TOBII eye tracker. Infants looked preferentially at the face that matched the test background very early in the trial; however, the time course of this preferential looking effect varied as a function of delay. These results suggest that by 9 months of age infants can form memories that represent the relations among items and maintain them over short delays.     

Processing ambiguous verbs: evidence from eye movements

In 2 eye-tracking experiments, participants read verbs that had 2 (unrelated) meanings or 2 (related) senses in contexts that disambiguated before or after the verb, to the dominant or subordinate interpretation. A 3rd experiment used unambiguous verbs. The results indicated that the language processor used information about context in the early stages of resolving meaning ambiguities but only during integration for sense ambiguities. Effects of preference were delayed for both types of verbs. The results contrast with findings concerning the processing of nouns (e.g., K. Rayner & S. A. Duffy, 1986). For meaning ambiguities, the authors argue that delays in resolution allow both meanings to reach a high level of activation, thus reducing effects of frequency. For sense ambiguities, the authors argue that the processor does not access multiple senses but activates one underspecified meaning and uses context to home in on the appropriate sense.     

Vowel processing during silent reading: evidence from eye movements

Two eye movement experiments examined whether skilled readers include vowels in the early phonological representations used in word recognition during silent reading. Target words were presented in sentences preceded by parafoveal previews in which the vowel phoneme was concordant or discordant with the vowel phoneme in the target word. In Experiment 1, the orthographic vowel differed from the target in both the concordant and discordant preview conditions. In Experiment 2, the vowel letters in the preview were identical to those in the target word. The phonological vowel was ambiguous, however, and the final consonants of the previews biased the vowel phoneme either toward or away from the target's vowel phoneme. In both experiments, shorter reading times were observed for targets preceded by concordant previews than by discordant previews. Implications for models of word recognition are discussed.     

Integration of syntactic and semantic information in predictive processing: cross-linguistic evidence from German and English

Two visual-world eyetracking experiments were conducted to investigate whether, how, and when syntactic and semantic constraints are integrated and used to predict properties of subsequent input. Experiment 1 contrasted auditory German constructions such as, The hare-nominative eats ... (the cabbage-acc) versus The hare-accusative eats ... (the fox-nom), presented with a picture containing a hare, fox, cabbage, and distractor. We found that the probabilities of the eye movements to the cabbage and fox before the onset of NP2 were modulated by the case-marking of NP1, indicating that the case-marking (syntactic) information and verbs' semantic constraints are integrated rapidly enough to predict the most plausible NP2 in the scene. Using English versions of the same stimuli in active/passive voice (Experiment 2), we replicated the same effect, but at a slightly earlier position in the sentence. We discuss the discrepancies in the two Germanic languages in terms of the ease of integrating information across, or within, constituents.     

Activation of phonological codes during reading: evidence from errors detection and eye movements

This experiment explored the role of phonology in the activation of word meanings when homophonic and nonhomophonic errors were embedded in meaningful texts. The resulting data supported the position that phonological codes are activated very early in eye fixation and are compatible with the verification model of Van Orden (1987).     

Competition during the processing of quantifier scope ambiguities: evidence from eye movements during reading

We investigated the processing of sentences containing a quantifier scope ambiguity, such as Kelly showed a photo to each critic, which is ambiguous between the indefinite phrase (a photo) having one or many referents. Ambiguity resolution requires the computation of relative quantifier scope, with either a photo or each critic taking wide scope, thereby determining the number of referents. Using eye tracking, we established that multiple factors, including the grammatical function and surface linear order of quantified phrases, along with their lexical characteristics, interact during the processing of relative quantifier scope, with conflict between factors incurring a processing cost. We discuss the results in terms of theoretical accounts attributing sentence-processing difficulty to either reanalysis (e.g., Fodor, 1982) or competition between rival analyses (e.g., Kurtzman & MacDonald, 1993).     

Task-set reconfiguration suspends perceptual processing: evidence from semantic priming during the attentional blink

When two visual targets, Target 1 (T1) and Target 2 (T2), are presented among a rapid sequence of distractors, processing of T1 produces an attentional blink. Typically, processing of T2 is markedly impaired, except when T1 and T2 are adjacent (Lag 1 sparing). However, if a shift of task set--a change in task requirements from T1 to T2--occurs, this sparing is reduced substantially. With a semantic priming technique, in which T1 could be either related or unrelated to T2, the priming of T2 by T1 diminished markedly at Lag 1, when the transition between T1 and T2 involved a switch in either location (Experiments 1 and 2) or task (Experiment 3), but remained unaffected at other lags. These results suggest that perceptual processing of T2 cannot be carried out in parallel with task-set reconfiguration.     

Structural priming from simple arithmetic to Chinese ambiguous structures: evidence from eye movement

Cognitive Processing - This article explores the domain generality of hierarchical representation between linguistic and mathematical cognition by adopting the structural priming paradigm in an...     

Comparing eye movements during position tracking and identity tracking: No evidence for separate systems

There is an ongoing debate as to whether people track multiple moving objects in a serial fashion or with a parallel mechanism. One recent study compared eye movements when observers tracked identical objects (Multiple Object Tracking—MOT task) versus when they tracked the identities of different objects (Multiple Identity Tracking—MIT task). Distinct eye-movement patterns were found and attributed to two separate tracking systems. However, the same results could be caused by differences in the stimuli viewed during tracking. In the present study, object identities in the MIT task were invisible during tracking, so observers performed MOT and MIT tasks with identical stimuli. Observer were able to track either position and identity depending on the task. There was no difference in eye movements between position tracking and identity tracking. This result suggests that, while observers can use different eye-movement strategies in MOT and MIT, it is not necessary.     

Shallow processing of ambiguous pronouns: evidence for delay

Two self-paced reading-time experiments examined how ambiguous pronouns are interpreted under conditions that encourage shallow processing. In Experiment 1 we show that sentences containing ambiguous pronouns are processed at the same speed as those containing unambiguous pronouns under shallow processing, but more slowly under deep processing. We outline three possible models to account for the shallow processing of ambiguous pronouns. Two involve an initial commitment followed by possible revision, and the other involves a delay in interpretation. In Experiment 2 we provide evidence that supports the delayed model of ambiguous pronoun resolution under shallow processing. We found no evidence to support a processing system that makes an initial commitment to an interpretation of the pronoun when it is encountered. We extend the account of pronoun resolution proposed by Rigalleau, Caplan, and Baudiffier (2004) to include the treatment of ambiguous pronouns under shallow processing.     

Children's and adults' processing of anomaly and implausibility during reading: evidence from eye movements

The eye movements of 24 children and 24 adults were monitored to compare how they read sentences containing plausible, implausible, and anomalous thematic relations. In the implausible condition the incongruity occurred due to the incompatibility of two objects involved in the event denoted by the main verb. In the anomalous condition the direct object of the verb was not a possible verb argument. Adults exhibited immediate disruption with the anomalous sentences as compared to the implausible sentences as indexed by longer gaze durations on the target word. Children exhibited the same pattern of effects as adults as far as the anomalous sentences were concerned, but exhibited delayed effects of implausibility. These data indicate that while children and adults are alike in their basic thematic assignment processes during reading, children may be delayed in the efficiency with which they are able to integrate pragmatic and real-world knowledge into their discourse representation.     

Global context effects on processing lexically ambiguous words: Evidence from eye fixations

Readers' eye movements were monitored as they read biased ambiguous target words in the context of a short paragraph. Two aspects of context were manipulated. The global context was presented in the topic sentence of the paragraph and instantiated either the dominant or the subordinate meaning of biased ambiguous target words (those with highly dominant meanings). Local contextual information either preceded or followed the target word and was always consistent with the subordinate interpretation. Consistent with prior research, we obtained a subordinate bias effect wherein readers looked longer at the ambiguous words than control words when the preceding context instantiated the subordinate meaning. More importantly, the magnitude of the subordinate bias effect was the same when global context alone, local context alone, or local and global context combined were consistent with the subordinate meaning of the ambiguous word. The results of this study indicate that global contextual information (1) has an immediate impact on lexical ambiguity resolution when no local disambiguating information is available, (2) has no additional effect when it is consistent with local information, but (3) does have a slightly delayed effect when inconsistent with local information.     

The processing of metonymy: evidence from eye movements

The authors investigated the time course of the processing of metonymic expressions in comparison with literal ones in 2 eye-tracking experiments. Experiment 1 considered the processing of sentences containing place-for-institution metonymies such as the convent in That blasphemous woman had to answer to the convent; it was found that such expressions were of similar difficulty to sentences containing literal interpretations of the same expressions. In contrast, expressions without a relevant metonymic interpretation caused immediate difficulty. Experiment 2 found similar results for place-for-event metonymies such as A lot of Americans protested during Vietnam, except that the difficulty with expressions without a relevant metonymic interpretation was somewhat delayed. The authors argue that these findings are incompatible with models of figurative language processing in which either the literal sense is accessed first or the figurative sense is accessed first. Instead, they support an account in which both senses can be accessed immediately, perhaps through a single under-specified representation.     

The processing of spatial information in short-term memory: Insights from eye tracking the path length effect

Effects of averageness and symmetry on the judgment of facial attractiveness were investigated using a generalized Procrustes method and multiple regression analyses. Participants (n = 114) rated attractiveness of 96 photographs of faces with neutral expressions. Through a generalized Procrustes method, the faces and their mirror-reversed versions were represented as points on a hyperplane. Both averageness and symmetry of each individual were defined as distances on the plane. A multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the effect of symmetry and averageness for each gender. For male faces, both symmetry and averageness affected attractiveness ratings positively , and there was no difference between the effects of averageness and symmetry. On the other hand, for female faces only averageness affected attractiveness, whereas symmetry did not. However, these effects were not large.     

Processing syntactically ambiguous sentences: Evidence from semantic priming

In this paper, we report the results of a study which investigates the processing of syntactically ambiguous sentences. We examined the processing of sentences in which an embedded clause is interpretable as either a complement clause or as a relative clause, as in, for example,The receptionist informed the doctor that the journalist had phoned about the events. The embedded clause in such sentences is typically analyzed as a complement to the verbinformed, rather than as a relative clause modifyingthe doctor. A number of models parsing predict this is the only analysis ever considered, while others predict that both interpretations are computed in parallel. Using a cross-model semantic priming technique, we probed for activation ofdoctor just after the embedded verb. Since only the relative clause analysis contains a connection betweenthe doctor and the embedded verb, we expected reactivation ofdoctor at that point only if the relative clause analysis were a viable option. Our results suggest that this is the case: Compared to priming in an ambiguous control sentence, a significant reactivation effect was obtained. These results are argued to support a model of parsing in which attachment of a clause may be delayed.The research reported here was supported in part by a grant from the McDonnell-Pew Cognitive Neurosciences Program, in part by grant DC-01409 (a research and training grant funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communicative Disorders), and in part by a SERC postdoctoral fellowship B/90/ITF/293. We are grateful to Andrew Barss, Paul Bloom, Merrill Garrett, David Swinney, and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to Paul Gorrell for extremely useful discussion of parsing issues. We thank Suzanne Delaney for giving voice to our stimulus sentences. The results of this study were presented at the Fifth Annual CUNY Sentence Processing Conference, New York, March 1992.Order of authors is alphabetical.     

Immediate disambiguation of lexically ambiguous words during reading: Evidence from eye movements

Sentences containing lexically ambiguous words were read as readers' eye movements were monitored. On half of the trials, the dominant meaning of the ambiguous word was instantiated, while in the other half, the subordinate meaning was instantiated. Furthermore, on half of the trials, an adjective or modifier immediately preceded the target noun (kitchen table, statistical table), which was consistent with either the dominant or subordinate meaning. The results of the experiment demonstrate that readers are able to immediately utilize the modifier to select the appropriate meaning of the ambiguous word.     

Effects of titles on the processing of text and lexically ambiguous words: Evidence from eye movements

Providing titles for passages improves the comprehension and memorability of text. Titles have generally been thought to facilitate comprehension at later stages of processing. Consistent with prior research, we found that passages presented with titles were better recalled than those without titles. Furthermore, in Experiment 1, the presence of titles led to fewer regressive eye movements, shorter end-of-sentence reading times, and shorter fixation times on target nouns. Experiments 2 and 3, using ambiguous target words, indicated that except when a very infrequent sense of a word is required, titles provide a strong enough context to allow for ambiguous words to be processed as quickly as control words. The results of the three experiments suggest that titles affect processing at both integrative and lexical stages of reading.     

Spatial distance effects on incremental semantic interpretation of abstract sentences: Evidence from eye tracking

A large body of evidence has shown that visual context information can rapidly modulate language comprehension for concrete sentences and when it is mediated by a referential or a lexical-semantic link. What has not yet been examined is whether visual context can also modulate comprehension of abstract sentences incrementally when it is neither referenced by, nor lexically associated with, the sentence. Three eye-tracking reading experiments examined the effects of spatial distance between words (Experiment 1) and objects (Experiment 2 and 3) on participants’ reading times for sentences that convey similarity or difference between two abstract nouns (e.g., ‘Peace and war are certainly different...’). Before reading the sentence, participants inspected a visual context with two playing cards that moved either far apart or close together. In Experiment 1, the cards turned and showed the first two nouns of the sentence (e.g., ‘peace’, ‘war’). In Experiments 2 and 3, they turned but remained blank. Participants’ reading times at the adjective (Experiment 1: first-pass reading time; Experiment 2: total times) and at the second noun phrase (Experiment 3: first-pass times) were faster for sentences that expressed similarity when the preceding words/objects were close together (vs. far apart) and for sentences that expressed dissimilarity when the preceding words/objects were far apart (vs. close together). Thus, spatial distance between words or entirely unrelated objects can rapidly and incrementally modulate the semantic interpretation of abstract sentences.     

Basic number processing deficits in developmental dyscalculia: Evidence from eye tracking

Recent research suggests that developmental dyscalculia is associated with a subitizing deficit (i.e., the inability to quickly enumerate small sets of up to 3 objects). However, the nature of this deficit has not previously been investigated. In the present study the eye-tracking methodology was employed to clarify whether (a) the subitizing deficit of two boys with dyscalculia resulted from a general slowing in the access to magnitude representation, or (b) children with dyscalculia resort to a back-up counting strategy even for small object sets. In a dot-counting task, a standard problem size effect for the number of fixations required to encode the presented numerosity within the subitizing range was observed. Together with the finding that problem size had no impact on the average fixation duration, this result suggested that children with dyscalculia may indeed have to count, while typically developing controls are able to enumerate the number of dots in parallel, i.e., subitize. Implications for the understanding of developmental dyscalculia are considered.