title: Relational processing and working memory capacity in comprehension of relative clause sentences.
abstract: Previous research has indicated that the cognitive load imposed by tasks in various content domains increases with the complexity of the relational information processed. Sentence comprehension entails processing noun-verb relations to determine who did what to whom. The difficulty of object-extracted relative clause sentences might stem from the complex noun-verb relations they entail. Across three studies, participants read 16 types of object- and subject-extracted relative clause sentences at their own pace and then responded to a comprehension question for each sentence. Relational processing was assessed using a premise integration task or a Latin square task. These tasks predicted comprehension of object-relatives before and after controlling for subject-relatives. Working memory (WM) capacity was assessed using reading span or forward and backward digit span tests. WM tasks predicted comprehension of object-relatives before but not after controlling for subject-relatives. Comprehension of object-relatives relied more heavily on a domain-general capacity to process complex relations than on WM capacity.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. g.andrews@griffith.edu.au
authors.forename: Glenda
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Andrews
authors.forename: Damian
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Birney
authors.forename: Graeme S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Halford
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D014706:Verbal Learning