Immediate and delayed recall of visually presented sentences: evidence for the involvement of phonological information

The lure intrusion effect refers to the observation that lexical priming affects recall of sentences. This effect is taken as evidence against the contribution of surface information, even with immediate sentence recall. Recently, Rummer and Engelkamp (2003a) demonstrated that this effect, which is usually observed under rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), does not appear under immediate recall of auditorily presented sentences. This finding indicates that surface information (i.e., phonological or acoustic-sensory information) can contribute to immediate sentence recall. So far, however, the findings do not allow for a decision on whether phonological and/or acoustic-sensory information is used in immediate sentence recall. In order to dissociate the two kinds of surface information, an experiment was conducted in which immediate and delayed recall were tested for sentences that were visually presented for a longer period of time than in RSVP. This kind of presentation should support phonological representations, but does not allow for acoustic-sensory representations. The findings showed a smaller intrusion effect for immediate than for delayed recall. This indicates that, if available, phonological information is involved in immediate sentence recall thereby reducing the lure intrusion effect. Furthermore, the findings support the assumption that the phonological trace provided via RSVP reading is weaker than in normal reading.     

Subordinating conjunctions as devices for unifying sentences in memory

In two experiments, we provide evidence that the subordinating conjunctions "nachdem" [after] and "weil" [because] unify sentences in immediate memory better than the coordinating conjunctions "erst-dann" [first-then] and "deshalb [therefore] are able to do. Immediate recall of the two clauses of subordinate sentences was equally good, whereas recall of coordinate sentences was better for the first clause than for the second in both experiments. In Experiment 2, it was additionally shown that this recall pattern was not due to prosodic information.     

Active memory processes in visual sentence comprehension: Clause effects and pronominal reference

Two experiments were conducted to investigate active memory processes during reading. Subjects read two-clause sentences one word at a time at a self-paced rate. Following each sentence a probe word was presented; subjects were to decide if this word occurred in the sentence they had just read. The first experiment examined clausal effects during reading. Reaction times to items from the final clause were shorter than those to items from a previous clause even when the same number of words intervened. The second experiment used the clause effect to address the issue of proniminal reference. Results indicated that a pronoun in the final clause activated the meaning of its antecedent, thus demonstrating that the method is sensitive to both surface and meaning codes in active memory.     

An on-line assessment of causal reasoning during comprehension

Fletcher and Bloom (1988) have argued that as readers read narratives, clause by clause, they repeatedly focus their attention on the last preceding clause that contains antecedents but no consequences in the text. This strategy allows them to discover a causal path linking the text's opening to its final outcome while minimizing the number of times long-term memory must be searched for missing antecedents or consequences. In order to test this hypothesis, we examined the reading times of 25 subjects for each clause of eight simple narrative texts. The results show that: (1) causal links between clauses that co-occur in short-term memory (as predicted by the strategy) increase the time required to read the second clause; (2) potential causal links between clauses that never co-occur in short-term memory (again as predicted by the strategy) have no effect on reading time; and (3) reinstatement searches are initiated at the end of sentences that are causally unrelated to the contents of short-term memory or that contain clauses that satisfy goals no longer in short-term memory. These results support the claim that subjects engage in a form of causal reasoning when they read simple narrative texts.     

Underspecification of syntactic ambiguities: Evidence from self-paced reading

Syntactically ambiguous sentences are sometimes read faster than disambiguated strings. Models of parsing have explained this tendency by appealing either to a race in the construction of alternative structures or to reanalysis. However, it is also possible that readers of ambiguous sentences save time by strategically underspecifying interpretations of ambiguous attachments. In a self-paced reading study, participants viewed sentences with relative clauses that could attach to one of two sites. Type of question was also manipulated between participants in order to test whether goals can influence reading/parsing strategies. The experiment revealed an ambiguity advantage in reading times, but only when participants expected superficial comprehension questions. When participants expected queries about relative clause interpretation, disambiguating regions were inspected with more care, and the ambiguity advantage was attenuated. However, even when participants expected relative clause queries, question-answering times suggested underspecified representations of ambiguous relative clause attachments. The results support the construal and "good-enough" models of parsing.     

Effects of Local and Global Context on Processing Sentences with Subject and Object Relative Clauses

An eye tracking study investigated the effects of local and global discourse context on the processing of subject and object relative clauses, whereby the contexts favored either a subject relative clause interpretation or an object relative clause interpretation. The fixation data replicated previous studies showing that object relative clause sentences were more difficult to process than subject relative sentences. Crucially, however, the reading difficulty asymmetry between subject and object relative clause sentences disappeared when the sentences were presented with a local or a global discourse context that favored the objects in the object relative clauses. These findings demonstrate that the evidence for a syntax-based account of sentence processing is found when sentences are presented in isolation. However, if sentences are placed more naturally, in context, discourse factors outweigh the initial structural assignment.     

On-line and off-line reflexive resolution in Japanese logophoric sentences

This study investigates on-line and off-line resolution of a Japanese reflexive,jibun, for logophoric sentences, i.e., complex sentences involving a matrix verb that reflects one's point of view feelings, or state of consciousness, and for nonlogophoric sentences, i.e., complex sentences involving a subordinate adverbial clause. According to Kuroda's (1973) thesis and Chomsky's (1981) binding principle (for nonlogophoric sentences only), the reflexive in the logophoric sentences can be associated with the subject of both a matrix sentence and a subordinate sentence whereas that in the nonlogophoric sentences can only be associated with the subject of the subordinate sentence. In Experiment 1, 42 students were administered a probe-recognition task in which a probe was given for the subject either of the matrix sentence or of the subordinate sentence immediately after the end of the subordinate clause or at the end of a sentence following the matrix verb. Recognition times were faster for a matrix-subject probe than for a subordinatesubject probe regardless of the sentence type and probe position. In Experiment 2, 40 students were administered an on-line antecedent identification task in which they were required to quickly and accurately identify, when given a probe, the antecedent of the reflexive, with the probe given after the reflexive or at the end of a sentence. Regardless of the sentence type, matrix-subject was judged to be the antecedent of the reflexive more often than subordinate-subject, with the effect of probe position being negligible. An offline study required 136 students to indicate the antecedent(s) for the two types of sentence given in their entirety. No effect of sentence type was found. Findings indicate that neither Kuroda's thesis nor Chomsky's binding principle is applied when Japanese speakers parse logophoric and nonlogophoric sentences.Part of this study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, No. 05610067. Deep gratitude is due to Professor D. D. Steinberg for reading an earlier version of this paper. Thanks are also due to Ms. S. Ogawa for her help in collecting part of the off-line data.     

Does Structural Complexity Necessarily Imply Processing Difficulty?

Our goal is to establish a link between the time needed to plan a sentence containing an embedded clause and the structure of this sentence. Contrary to a traditional monolithic conception of subordination, three types of embeddings were considered, depending on their degree of syntactic integration: subcategorized, modifier and pseudo-embedded clauses. We hypothesized that in the case of subcategorization, fewer pauses should occur between the matrix and the subordinate clause since the latter is required by the lexical properties of verbs. By contrast, pseudo-embedded clauses are the less integrated. Hence, they should exhibit planning characteristics similar to the ones of simple sentences, the matrix clause and the subordinate clauses being planned in two steps. Twenty texts produced by French speaking adults were recorded. Pauses were characterized according to their duration and position. Globally, both predictions were confirmed. We conclude that supposedly complex sentences are not necessarily difficult to process.     

Working memory capacity and individual differences in the making of reinstatement and elaborative inferences

This study investigated the role of working memory capacity on the making of reinstatement and causal elaborative inferences during the reading of natural texts. In order to determine participants' working memory capacity, they were asked to take the reading span task before they took part in the study. Those participants that were identified as high or low working memory capacity readers were asked to perform a lexical decision task in two conditions: pre-inference and inference. In the pre-inference condition, target words representing reinstatement or causal elaborative inferences were presented immediately before the sentences that were predicted to prompt them. In the inference condition, the target words were presented immediately after the sentences that were predicted to prompt the inferences. Results indicated that, for the high working memory capacity readers, lexical decision times were faster at the inference compared to the pre-inference locations for both types of inferences. In the case of low working capacity readers, lexical decision times were faster at the inference compared to the pre-inference locations only for reinstatement inferences. These findings suggest that working memory capacity plays a role in the making of causal inferences during the comprehension of natural texts.     

The role of pragmatic principles in resolving attachment ambiguities: Evidence from eye movements

In an eyetracking experiment, participants read sentences that contained a prepositional phrase (PP) that could be attached to one of two preceding verbs. To understand the sentence, readers had to select which verb would serve as the host for the PP. In some of the sentences, the critical verbs and the PPs were part of a subordinate clause in which lexical and syntactic factors were expected to matter, but discourse factors favoring attachment of the material to positions where it would be relevant to the main assertion of the sentence were not expected to matter. In other sentences, the critical material was tested in main clause contexts in which the main assertion principle was predicted to apply. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that online attachment preferences were affected by clause type (main vs. subordinate). Specifically, the preference for a local verb over a distant verb was greater when the critical material appeared within a subordinate clause than when it appeared within a main clause. This pattern of results can be explained by the operation of the relativized relevance or main assertion principle, which in our sentences meant that participants favored attachment of the PP to the first verb over the second.     

Cross‐Linguistic Differences in Processing Double‐Embedded Relative Clauses: Working‐Memory Constraints or Language Statistics?

An English double‐embedded relative clause from which the middle verb is omitted can often be processed more easily than its grammatical counterpart, a phenomenon known as the grammaticality illusion. This effect has been found to be reversed in German, suggesting that the illusion is language specific rather than a consequence of universal working memory constraints. We present results from three self‐paced reading experiments which show that Dutch native speakers also do not show the grammaticality illusion in Dutch, whereas both German and Dutch native speakers do show the illusion when reading English sentences. These findings provide evidence against working memory constraints as an explanation for the observed effect in English. We propose an alternative account based on the statistical patterns of the languages involved. In support of this alternative, a single recurrent neural network model that is trained on both Dutch and English sentences is shown to predict the cross‐linguistic difference in the grammaticality effect.     

Event order versus syntactic structure in recall of adverbial complex sentences

Two experiments using recall of sentences examined two contrasting principles of clause ordering in a type of complex sentences: the main-clause-first (syntactic) principle and the event-order (or temporal-causal order) prir ciple. In Experiment 1, these two principles were studied in complex sentences with a main clause and a subordinate adverbial clause-e.g., When she heard the thunder, she stopped playing Frisbee. In sentences of this type the subordinate clause typically describes a temporally or causally antecedent event, while the main clause describes a subsequent event in the temporal-causal sequence. These two principles make opposite predictions on what is the psychologically simpler or preferred order of the two clauses in this type of complex sentence. Results of Experiment 1 showed an overall preference in memory for main-clause-first order. In Experiment 2, complex sentences with a main clause and a subordinate clause not temporally or causally related were also used in a sentence recall task. Similar results were obtained. The implication of these findings for the determinants of linguistic structures was discussed.     

Immediate memory for words from main and subordinate clauses at different age levels

A probe-latency task was used to assess accessibility to the words from the first and second clauses of four types of sentences. The sentences contained either independent clauses or main and subordinate clauses. The subjects were 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children, and adults. On sentences with no main-subordinate distinction, word recognition latencies were shorter for second clauses for all groups except 4-year-olds. On sentences with main and subordinate clauses systematically varied over position in the sentence, however, latencies were most often shorter for subordinate clauses, even when they occurred at the beginning of the sentence. The results indicate that a clause is not simply represented in abstract form rather than verbatim form once the complete clause has been heard, but instead the structural role of the clause, as well as other factors, influences accessibility to verbatim form. It is proposed that listeners frequently interpret an asserted main clause more readily than a subordinate clause. This comprehension strategy appears in different forms at different stages of development.This research was supported in part by NIMH Fellowship No. 1 FO2MH 57352-01 and in part by a Montclair State College Faculty Research Grant to the first author.     

The Influence of Focus Operators on Syntactic Processing of Short Relative Clause Sentences

Ni, Crain, and Shankweiler (1996) present evidence to suggest that the focus operator only can guide how reduced relative clause sentences are initially parsed. In this paper, we demonstrate that this does not hold for relative clause sentences that start with a noun-phrase, verb, noun-phrase construction. We report an eye movement study in which subjects read reduced and unreduced sentences of this type with and without the focus operator only. There were longer first-pass reading times in the critical region of reduced sentences than in the same region of unreduced sentences, regardless of the inclusion of only. Furthermore, readers spent less time re-inspecting portions of text after being garden pathed when reading reduced relative clause sentences that contained the focus operator than when reading reduced relative clause sentences that did not. We conclude that subjects initially syntactically misanalysed reduced relative clause sentences with and without only, and the inclusion of a focus operator facilitated recovery procedures rather than guiding initial parsing. These results are inconsistent with the referential theory and undermine the conclusions of Ni et al. (1996).     

Clause structure of sentences and speech processing

Listeners heard narrative stories in segments 20-60 sec long, and wrote their immediate recall for the most recent speech in each segment. Segments ended in four ways: there was a main clause alone, a subordinate clause alone, a main clause preceding a subordinate clause, or a subordinate clause preceding a main clause. Only these final sentences were well recalled. Of these, single-clause sentences were recalled best and two-clause sentences with main-subordinate clause order were recalled worst. An interaction obtained between clause position and function suggests that processing may be delayed when sentences fall to begin with main clauses.     

Working memory and inferences: evidence from eye fixations during reading

Eye fixations during reading were monitored to examine the relationship between individual differences in working memory capacity-as assessed by the reading span task-and inferences about predictable events. Context sentences predicting likely events, or non-predicting control sentences, were presented. They were followed by continuation sentences in which a target word represented an event to be inferred (inferential word) or an unlikely event (non-predictable word). A main effect of reading span showed that high working memory capacity was related to shorter gaze durations across sentence regions. More specific findings involved an interaction between context, target, and reading span on late processing measures and regions. Thus, for high- but not for low-span readers, the predicting condition, relative to the control condition, facilitated reanalysis of the continuation sentence that represented the inference concept. This effect was revealed by a reduction in regression-path reading time in the last region of the sentence, involving less time reading that region and fewer regressions from it. These results indicate that working memory facilitates elaborative inferences during reading, but that this occurs at late text-integration processes, rather than at early lexical-access processes.     

The processing and remembering of congruent and incongruent sentences

Complex sentences, withwhile, before, after, because, orin order to, and other presented clauses were to be conjoined together by using eitherand, orbut. Congruent cases, in which subjects were expected to respond withand, had shorter response latencies than incongruent cases, with expectedbut responses. This indicated a semantic incongruence effect. But the latter were remembered better, indicating a motivational salience effect due to contradiction of expectation. Whether the main clause preceded or followed the subordinate clause was not significant, in terms of either reponse latencies or sentence memory. Sentences withafter had faster response times than those withbefore, although identical constituent clauses were used.     

Eye movements of young and older adults during reading

The eye movements of young and older adults were tracked as they read sentences varying in syntactic complexity. In Experiment 1, cleft object and object relative clause sentences were more difficult to process than cleft subject and subject relative clause sentences; however, older adults made many more regressions, resulting in increased regression path fixation times and total fixation times, than young adults while processing cleft object and object relative clause sentences. In Experiment 2, older adults experienced more difficulty than young adults while reading cleft and relative clause sentences with temporary syntactic ambiguities created by deleting the that complementizers. Regression analyses indicated that readers with smaller working memories need more regressions and longer fixation times to process cleft object and object relative clause sentences. These results suggest that age-associated declines in working memory do affect syntactic processing.     

Overt reanalysis strategies and eye movements during the reading of mild garden path sentences

In an eye movement experiment, we examined the use of reanalysis strategies during the reading of locally ambiguous but globally unambiguous Spanish sentences. Among other measures, we examined regressive eye movements made while readers were recovering in reading mild garden path sentences. The sentences had an adverbial clause that, depending on the mood (indicative vs. subjunctive) of the subordinate clause verb, could attach high (to the main verb of the sentence) or low (to the verb in the subordinate clause). Although Spanish speakers favor low attachment, the high attachment version was quite easy to understand. Readers predominately used two alternative strategies to recover from the mild garden path in our sentences. In the more common reanalysis strategy, their eyes regressed from the last region (disambiguation+ 1) directly to the main verb in the sentence. Following this, they reread the rest of the sentence, fixating the next region and the adverb (the beginning of the ambiguous part of the sentence). Less frequently, readers regressed from the last region (disambiguation+1) directly to the adverb. We argue that both types of strategies are consistent with a selective reanalysis process as described by Frazier and Rayner (1982).