title: Individual differences in syntactic ambiguity resolution: readers vary in their use of plausibility information.
abstract: Two experiments investigated the relation between individual differences in working memory capacity and differences in the efficiency of syntactic processing. In one experiment, readers comprehended sentences containing main-verb/reduced-relative ambiguities that all resolved to the reduced-relative interpretation. High-span (but not low-span) readers processed sentences more slowly when the sentences were biased to the preferred, main-verb interpretation than when they were biased to the reduced-relative interpretation. Moreover, high-span (but not low-span) readers used information about the plausibility of the different interpretations even though low-span readers appeared to possess the requisite knowledge. In Experiment 2, readers received intensive exposure to sentences with main-verb/reduced-relative ambiguities. Exposure enhanced low-span readers' use of plausibility information. Moreover, the effect of exposure generalized to sentences that were not included in the training materials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Calfornia, Davis, California 95616, USA. dllong@ucdavis.edu
authors.forename: Debra L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Long
authors.forename: Chantel S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Prat
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D032882:Comprehension; D003210:Concept Formation; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics