Processing strategies in sentence comprehension

Response latencies in sentence-picture verification tasks were compared as a function of whether a mismatch was located in the logical subject (LS), verb (V), or logical object (LO) of the sentence. Sentences were presented auditorily and varied in voice and reversibility. The comparison process for nonreversibles was clearly serial self-terminating: latencies for both actives and passives were ordered LS < V < LO, or, after practice with a small number of mismatch types, LS < LO < V. Latencies for reversibles were ordered V < LS = LO, suggesting either a verb-first comparison process or an LS-V-LO comparison process which did not terminate with a subject-mismatch because of the confusability of the subject and object. The results attest to the importance of considering the "naturalness" of stimuli in sentence processing tasks, and the flexibility of subjects' encoding and comparison strategies both within and across task contexts.     

Processing strategies in picture-sentence verification tasks

The encoding and comparison strategies used by observers in matching pictures and sentences were investigated. The location of the mismatch or difference between a sentence and a picture was varied, and the latencies of "same"-"different" responses were compared as a function of whether the mismatch occurred in the sentence subject, verb, or object. Sentences were presented auditorily and varied in both voice and reversibility. Pictures either preceded or were presented simultaneously with the sentences. In all cases, Ss adopted a serial self-terminating comparison strategy and a surface structure encoding strategy: The comparison was terminated as soon as a mismatch was encountered, and actives were processed in the order subject-verb-object, whereas passives were processed in the order object-verb-subject.     

Parallel Processing Response Times and Experimental Determination of the Stopping Rule

It was formerly demonstrated that virtually all reasonable exhaustive serial models, and a more constrained set of exhaustive parallel models, cannot predict critical effects associated with self-terminating models. The present investigation greatly generalizes the parallel class of models covered by similar "impossibility" theorems. Specifically, we prove that if an exhaustive parallel model is not super capacity, and if targets are processed at least as fast as non-targets, then it cannot predict such (self-terminating) effects. Such effects are ubiquitous in the experimental literature, offering strong confirmation for self-terminating processing. Copyright 1997 Academic Press. Copyright 1997 Academic Press