To end ambiguous sentences

A study of the time required to complete ambiguous sentences suggested that: even though Ss are unaware of the ambiguity while completing sentences, they take more time to complete ambiguous sentences than unambiguous ones: the degree of difficulty in completing ambiguous sentences is related to the linguistic level at which the ambiguity occurs: sentences containing two ambiguities are more difficult to complete than those containing only one, and when these two ambiguities occur at different linguistic levels, these sentences are harder to complete than when both occur within the same linguistic level: ambiguity may affect the grammaticality and relevance of completions; and may cause stuttering and laughter, even without awareness of the ambiguity. An attempt to fit these results to several theories of the processing of ambiguous sentences led us to the conclusion that ambiguity interferes with our understanding of a single meaning of a sentence, and that the degree of interference varies with the linguistic level at which the ambiguity occurs.     

To end ambiguous sentences

A study of the time required to complete ambiguous sentences suggested that: even though Ss are unaware of the ambiguity while completing sentences, they take more time to complete ambiguous sentences than unambiguous ones: the degree of difficulty in completing ambiguous sentences is related to the linguistic level at which the ambiguity occurs: sentences containing two ambiguities are more difficult to complete than those containing only one, and when these two ambiguities occur at different linguistic levels, these sentences are harder to complete than when both occur within the same linguistic level: ambiguity may affect the grammaticality and relevance of completions; and may cause stuttering and laughter, even without awareness of the ambiguity. An attempt to fit these results to several theories of the processing of ambiguous sentences led us to the conclusion that ambiguity interferes with our understanding of a single meaning of a sentence, and that the degree of interference varies with the linguistic level at which the ambiguity occurs.     

Some processes in children's comprehension of linguistically and visually depicted relationships

A type of paired-associate task was given to 64 kindergarteners and 64 fifth-graders. In four conditions both linguistic and pictorial stimuli were presented simultaneously. In one condition, both a linguistic and pictorial relationship between two objects was depicted; in a second, only the linguistic aspect of the stimuli depicted a relationship; in the third condition, only the picture was relational; and in the fourth, neither the sentences nor the pictures portrayed a relationship between the objects. The results indicate that a relationship in both modes facilitated recall more than the presentation of a relationship in only one mode. A relationship in either mode enhanced recall more than no relationship at all. There were general significant age and IQ effects. The results are interpreted as favoring a duo-system model, with both representation and comprehension occurring within the context of relatively independent systems.     

Automatic access of the meanings of ambiguous words in context: Some limitations of knowledge-based processing

Five experiments are described on the processing of ambiguous words in sentences. Two classes of ambiguous words (noun-noun and noun-verb) and two types of context (priming and nonpriming) were investigated using a variable stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) priming paradigm. Noun-noun ambiguities have two semantically unrelated readings that are nouns (e.g., PEN, ORGAN); noun-verb ambiguities have both noun and verb readings that are unrelated (e.g., TIRE, WATCH). Priming contexts contain a word highly semantically or associatively related to one meaning of the ambiguous word; nonpriming contexts favor one meaning of the word through other types of information (e.g., syntactic or pragmatic). In nonpriming contexts, subjects consistently access multiple meanings of words and select one reading within 200 msec. Lexical priming differentially affects the processing of subsequent noun-noun and noun-verb ambiguities, yielding selective access of meaning only in the former case. The results suggest that meaning access is an automatic process which is unaffected by knowledge-based (“top-down”) processing. Whether selective or multiple access of meaning is observed largely depends on the structure of the ambiguous word, not the nature of the context.     

“Aha” effects in the generation of pictures

An "aha" effect in memory was first reported by Auble, Franks, and Soraci (1979). They demonstrated that recall was greater for sentences that were initially incomprehensible but which were eventually comprehended, as compared with sentences that were understood from the outset. The present studies extend this "aha" effect to memory for pictorial stimuli. In Experiment 1, a recall advantage for pictures encoded by connecting the dots as compared with those encoded by tracing or visual scanning occurred only in the absence of foreknowledge of the picture (i.e., an "aha" effect). In Experiment 2, we replicated this finding and obtained evidence that conceptually based, verbal foreknowledge does not function in a similar manner as does pictorial foreknowledge in suppressing the "aha" recall advantage. These results place important constraints on previous research on generation effects for visual stimuli and attest to the cross-modal generalizability of the "aha" effect.     

强弱语义语境下的否定句加工机制

2个眼动实验分别探讨强弱语义语境下的否定句加工机制, 以便考察语言理解是命题表征的过程还是经验模拟的过程, 抑或是二者兼具。在实验中, 被试首先听句子(强语义语境：如“胳膊不是弯曲的”的备择选项为“伸直的胳膊”, 其中“弯曲−伸直”为具有反义关系的强语义连接关系; 弱语义语境：如加工“裙子不是蓝色的”的备择选项为“黑色的裙子”, “蓝色−黑色”为弱语义连接关系), 然后会看到4张同时呈现的图片, 被试的任务是按键选择与句子描述匹配的图片。结果发现, 在强语义语境条件下, 被试在早期(201~600 ms时窗)对描述事件否定状态的图片(弯曲的胳膊)与描述事件实际状态的图片(伸直的胳膊)的注视概率没有差别, 晚期(601 ms后)仅对描述事件实际状态的图片的注视概率更高; 弱语义语境条件下, 被试在早期(401~600 ms)仅对描述事件否定状态的图片(蓝裙子)注视概率更高, 晚期(801 ms后)仅对描述事件实际状态的图片(黑色裙子)注视概率更高; 并且, 都对描述事件否定状态的图片的注视概率低于随机水平。结果支持符号依存假设和抑制假设。     

Long-term memory for pictures and sentences

Two experiments were conducted to examine the fan effect in recognition memory for pictures and sentences. Subjects in the first experiment memorized sets of pictures (N= 13) or sentences (N=13) in which the study items comprised concept combinations (e.g., the clock is on the television) that could be unambiguously depicted in each modality. The fan effect, contrasting study items involving unique- and shared-concepts combinations, was observed in the recognition reaction time data for sentences but not for pictures. Subjects in the second experiment (N= 17) memorized sets of pictures and sentences in which, in addition to the unique and shared intramodality conditions used in Experiment 1, subjects memorized items in each modality that shared concepts with items in the alternative modality. Although the fan effect was reduced for sentences in the second experiment, the intramodality results were qualitatively comparable to those obtained in Experiment 1. The results in the intermodality conditions indicated that, although pictorial study items influenced reaction time to sentences with which they shared a concept, the reverse was not the case. The results were thought to be inconsistent with the view that pictures and sentences enjoy a common representational format in long-term memory.     

Communicative Context Affects Use of Referential Prosody

The current study assessed the extent to which the use of referential prosody varies with communicative demand. Speaker–listener dyads completed a referential communication task during which speakers attempted to indicate one of two color swatches (one bright, one dark) to listeners. Speakers' bright sentences were reliably higher pitched than dark sentences for ambiguous (e.g., bright red versus dark red) but not unambiguous (e.g., bright red versus dark purple) trials, suggesting that speakers produced meaningful acoustic cues to brightness when the accompanying linguistic content was underspecified (e.g., “Can you get the red one?”). Listening partners reliably chose the correct corresponding swatch for ambiguous trials when lexical information was insufficient to identify the target, suggesting that listeners recruited prosody to resolve lexical ambiguity. Prosody can thus be conceptualized as a type of vocal gesture that can be recruited to resolve referential ambiguity when there is communicative demand to do so.     

Understanding the influence of literacy on consumer memory: The role of pictorial elements

This research examines the relationship between literacy and consumer memory. The effects of a variety of stimuli at exposure (i.e., brand names, brand signatures, and products in usage) on memory (i.e., recognition, stem-completion tasks) were examined for a range of literacy. In a series of experiments, we find that the use of pictorial representations of brands (i.e., brand signatures) results in superior brand memory for individuals with lower literacy levels when compared to those at higher literacy levels. This effect is shown to occur not due to pictorial elements per se, but due to pictorial elements with a 1-to-1 correspondence with reality, i.e., which match the form in which they were originally encoded in memory. Moreover, this effect does not persist with stimulus-rich pictures of brands in usage, pointing to boundary conditions with the use of pictorial information.     

LIFG-based attentional control and the resolution of lexical ambiguities in sentence context

The role of attentional control in lexical ambiguity resolution was examined in two patients with damage to the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and one control patient with non-LIFG damage. Experiment 1 confirmed that the LIFG patients had attentional control deficits compared to normal controls while the non-LIFG patient was relatively unimpaired. Experiment 2 showed that all three patients did as well as normal controls in using biasing sentence context to resolve lexical ambiguities involving balanced ambiguous words, but only the LIFG patients took an abnormally long time on lexical ambiguities that resolved toward a subordinate meaning of biased ambiguous words. Taken together, the results suggest that attentional control plays an important role in the resolution of certain lexical ambiguities - those that induce strong interference from context-inappropriate meanings (i.e., dominant meanings of biased ambiguous words).     

Segment duration as a cue to word boundaries in spoken-word recognition

In two eye-tracking experiments, we examined the degree to which listeners use acoustic cues to word boundaries. Dutch participants listened to ambiguous sentences in which stop-initial words (e.g., pot, jar) were preceded by eens (once); the sentences could thus also refer to cluster-initial words (e.g., een spot, a spotlight). The participants made fewer fixations to target pictures (e.g., ajar) when the target and the preceding [s] were replaced by a recording of the cluster-initial word than when they were spliced from another token of the target-bearing sentence (Experiment 1). Although acoustic analyses revealed several differences between the two recordings, only [s] duration correlated with the participants' fixations (more target fixations for shorter [s]s). Thus, we found that listeners apparently do not use all available acoustic differences equally. In Experiment 2, the participants made more fixations to target pictures when the [s] was shortened than when it was lengthened. Utterance interpretation can therefore be influenced by individual segment duration alone.     

Limitations on the use of verb information during sentence comprehension

An eye tracking experiment was conducted in order to investigate the role of verb information in resolving structural ambiguity during sentence comprehension. Reading time was measured on sentences containing temporarily ambiguous noun phrases (e.g., “The athlete revealed the problem⊙) that were continued as tensed sentence (S) complements or noun phrase (NP) complements. Ambiguous noun phrases were preceded either by verbs occurring most frequently with NP complements (NPbiased) or verbs occurring most frequently with S complements (S-biased). Reading time was also measured on sentences containing unambiguous S complements preceded by either NP-biased or S-biased verbs. The results showed that contrary to predictions made by verb guidance theories (e.g., constraint satisfaction; MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seidenberg, 1994a, 1994b; Trueswell & Tanenhaus, 1994), for both NP- and S-biased verb conditions, sentences containing temporarily ambiguous noun phrase complements were read most quickly, and sentences containing temporarily ambiguous S complements were read more slowly than those containing unambiguous S complements.     

Perception of pictorial depth cues by pigeons

Pigeons were trained to discriminate pictures of intact objects from pictures of objects in which both depth from shading and depth from perspective cues were manipulated. Depth from shading was manipulated either by scrambling or by removing three-dimensional shading cues. Depth from perspective was manipulated either by presenting pictures of objects with a two-dimensional outline (i.e., a square) or with a three-dimensional outline (i.e., a cube). Transfer tests with novel images suggest that pigeons perceive and utilize both types of pictorial depth cues. The implications of these results for our understanding of picture perception in pigeons are discussed.     

The role of color diagnosticity in object recognition and representation

The role of color diagnosticity in object recognition and representation was assessed in three Experiments. In Experiment 1a, participants named pictured objects that were strongly associated with a particular color (e.g., pumpkin and orange). Stimuli were presented in a congruent color, incongruent color, or grayscale. Results indicated that congruent color facilitated naming time, incongruent color impeded naming time, and naming times for grayscale items were situated between the congruent and incongruent conditions. Experiment 1b replicated Experiment 1a using a verification task. Experiment 2 employed a picture rebus paradigm in which participants read sentences one word at a time that included pictures of color diagnostic objects (i.e., pictures were substituted for critical nouns). Results indicated that the “reading” times of these pictures mirrored the pattern found in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, an attempt was made to override color diagnosticity using linguistic context (e.g., a pumpkin was described as painted green). Linguistic context did not override color diagnosticity. Collectively, the results demonstrate that color information is regularly utilized in object recognition and representation for highly color diagnostic items.     

The effect of non-verbal information on the recall of negation

The influence of non-verbal information on storage of different versions of negated sentences was investigated in a one-trial learning experiment. The negation governed either the subject, the object, or the predicate of the sentence. One group was presented with the sentences together with pictures. Another group the sentences only. The picture which was shown with a sentence represented the sentence content with an alternative for the negated concept. It was found that pictorial information had an effect on the recall of the sentences and that this effect is different for the different sentence versions.     

Hierarchical coding in speech timing

The analysis of syllable and pause durations in speech production can provide information about the properties of a speaker's grammatical code. The present study was conducted to reveal aspects of this code by analyzing syllable and pause durations in structurally ambiguous sentences. In Experiments 1–6, acoustical measurements were made for a key syllabic segment and a following pause for 10 or more speakers. Each of six structural ambiguities, previously unrelated, involved a grammatical relation between the constituent following the pause and one of two possible constituents preceding the pause. The results showed lengthening of the syllabic segments and pauses for the reading in which the constituent following the pause was hierarchically dominated by the higher of the two possible preceding constituents in a syntactic representation. The effects were also observed, to a lesser extent, when the structurally ambiguous sentences were embedded in disambiguating paragraph contexts (Experiment 7). The results show that a single hierarchical principle can provide a unified account of speech timing effects for a number of otherwise unrelated ambiguities. This principle is superior to a linear alternative and provides specific inferences about hierarchical relations among syntactic constituents in speech coding.     

Mirror-reflecting a picture of an object: what happens to the shape percept?

Although a two-dimensional picture never fully specifies the actual layout of the depicted three-dimensional scene, one is still able to make a three-dimensional interpretation. When a picture is mirror-reflected, the range of plausible scenes possibly corresponding with the depicted scene has not changed with respect to the original depiction. We were curious to find out whether the inherent picture ambiguities would be solved the same way or differently. Participants performed local attitude settings on three sets of pictures: (1) original pictures, (2) left-right mirrored pictures, and (3) up-down mirrored pictures. Pairwise comparison of the pictorial reliefs of the depicted object, reconstructed from the raw settings, revealed dissimilarities. The differences, however, could be drastically diminished by conducting an affine transformation correction taking into account not only the depths, but also the picture plane coordinates. The inherent ambiguities seemed thus to be solved differently between conditions. By factoring out different solutions to the ambiguities, the pictorial reliefs were found to be equivalent.     

A tale of two paradigms or metatheoretical approaches to cognitive neuropsychology: did Schmolck, Stefanacci, and Squire (2000) show that hippocampal lesions only impair memory, whereas adjacent (extrahippocampal) lesions impair detection and explanation of sentence ambiguity?

This note discusses two fundamentally different paradigms or metatheoretical approaches that currently guide cognitive neuropsychology: the Theoretical- vs. Anatomical-paradigms. To illustrate these paradigms, we compare a Theoretical-paradigm paper (MacKay & James, 2001) with an Anatomical-paradigm paper (Schmolck, Stefanacci, & Squire, 2000): These papers report virtually identical experiments on relations between language, memory, and hippocampal systems, using the same task (the detection and explanation of ambiguities in sentences that participants know are ambiguous), virtually identical ambiguous sentences, and at least one identical participant (the amnesic HM). However, MacKay and James made strikingly different claims from Schmolck et al., and we show that the Schmolck et al. claims comport not with their data but with an unstated theory to which they are implicitly committed within the Anatomical-paradigm.     

A Study on Late Closure in Spanish: Principle-grounded vs. Frequency-based Accounts of Attachment Preferences

A much-debated issue in current research on sentence parsing concerns the resolution of attachment ambiguities. Parsing theories differ on the procedures used to guide on-line attachment decisions: principle-grounded theories (e.g. garden-path/ construal) propose universal principles that minimize processing load; frequency-based accounts (such as linguistic tuning) claim that attachment decisions are shaped by readers' previous experience with their particular language; lexically based models, in turn, assert that attachment choices are determined by the properties of individual lexical items in the sentence. This paper reports six studies on late closure in the resolution of attachment ambiguities in Spanish: a questionnaire study on attachment preferences and three self-paced reading experiments where ambiguous PPs could be attached as arguments of two VP-hosts in NP-VP1-NPVP2-PP structures. The results show a clear preference towards low attachment (late closure), thus supporting principle-grounded theories. In addition, two corpus studies were carried out to obtain records of relative frequencies of the attachment choices involved in the experiments. A coarse-grained measure revealed that, in accordance with linguistic tuning, low-attachment structures are more common in Spanish NP-VP1-NP-VP2-PP sentences. However, a fine-grained count showed that low-attachment preferences cannot be explained by arguing that the specific verbs positioned lower on the tree (VP2) are more likely to take an extra argument than those located at a higher position (VP1), as lexical models would assume.     

The effect of semantic plausibility on sentence comprehension in aphasia

Tested were 50 aphasic patients (16 Broca's, 15 Wernicke's, 10 global, and 9 amnesic), 13 nonaphasic brain damaged patients, and 13 normal adults to evaluate the effect of semantic plausibility on sentence comprehension in active affirmative declarative sentences with a sentence-picture matching task. A plate of two pictures was provided for each stimulus sentence, and the subject was required to choose the picture corresponding to the sentence presented auditorily. Two types of sentences in terms of plausibility were prepared, i.e., probable sentences (P) describing common events in our daily life and improbable sentences (I) describing rare events. There were four kinds of combinations of a picture with the other to make a correct/(distractor) set, i.e., P/(P), P/(I), I/(P), and I/(I) constructions. The results indicated that probable sentences were more comprehensible than improbable sentences, and that the effect of semantic plausibility did not differ among aphasic types.