Similarity-based interference during language comprehension: Evidence from eye tracking during reading.
The nature of working memory operation during complex sentence comprehension was studied by means of eye-tracking methodology. Readers had difficulty when the syntax of a sentence required them to hold 2 similar noun phrases (NPs) in working memory before syntactically and semantically integrating either of the NPs with a verb. In sentence structures that placed these NPs at the same linear distances from one another but allowed integration with a verb for 1 of the NPs, the comprehension difficulty was not seen. These results are interpreted as indicating that similarity-based interference occurs online during the comprehension of complex sentences and that the degree of memory accessibility conventionally associated with different types of NPs does not have a strong effect on sentence processing.
Gordon
Peter C
PC
Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270, USA. pcg@email.unc.edu
Hendrick
Randall
R
Johnson
Marcus
M
Lee
Yoonhyoung
Y
D001288:Attention; D032882:Comprehension; D003210:Concept Formation; D005133:Eye Movements; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics