title: Similarity-based interference during language comprehension: Evidence from eye tracking during reading.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270, USA. pcg@email.unc.edu
authors.forename: Peter C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Gordon
authors.forename: Randall
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hendrick
authors.forename: Marcus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Yoonhyoung
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: 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