9071
2016
2016
eng
1
15
7
article
Frontiers Research Foundation
Lausanne
1
--
2016-03-30
--
Dependency Resolution Difficulty Increases with Distance in Persian Separable Complex Predicates
Delaying the appearance of a verb in a noun-verb dependency tends to increase processing difficulty at the verb; one explanation for this locality effect is decay and/or interference of the noun in working memory. Surprisal, an expectation-based account, predicts that delaying the appearance of a verb either renders it no more predictable or more predictable, leading respectively to a prediction of no effect of distance or a facilitation. Recently, Husain et al. (2014) suggested that when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is predictable (strong predictability), increasing argument-verb distance leads to facilitation effects, which is consistent with surprisal; but when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is not predictable (weak predictability), locality effects are seen. We investigated Husain et al.'s proposal using Persian complex predicates (CPs), which consist of a non-verbal element—a noun in the current study—and a verb. In CPs, once the noun has been read, the exact identity of the verb is highly predictable (strong predictability); this was confirmed using a sentence completion study. In two self-paced reading (SPR) and two eye-tracking (ET) experiments, we delayed the appearance of the verb by interposing a relative clause (Experiments 1 and 3) or a long PP (Experiments 2 and 4). We also included a simple Noun-Verb predicate configuration with the same distance manipulation; here, the exact identity of the verb was not predictable (weak predictability). Thus, the design crossed Predictability Strength and Distance. We found that, consistent with surprisal, the verb in the strong predictability conditions was read faster than in the weak predictability conditions. Furthermore, greater verb-argument distance led to slower reading times; strong predictability did not neutralize or attenuate the locality effects. As regards the effect of distance on dependency resolution difficulty, these four experiments present evidence in favor of working memory accounts of argument-verb dependency resolution, and against the surprisal-based expectation account of Levy (2008). However, another expectation-based measure, entropy, which was computed using the offline sentence completion data, predicts reading times in Experiment 1 but not in the other experiments. Because participants tend to produce more ungrammatical continuations in the long-distance condition in Experiment 1, we suggest that forgetting due to memory overload leads to greater entropy at the verb.
Frontiers in psychology
Evidence for Expectation and Memory-Based Accounts
10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00403
1664-1078
Universität Potsdam, Publikationsfonds
PA 2016_12
1503.86
online registration
403
<a href="http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-90728">Zweitveröffentlichung in der Schriftenreihe Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe ; 290</a>
CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International
Molood S. Safavi
Samar Husain
Shravan Vasishth
eng
uncontrolled
locality
eng
uncontrolled
expectation
eng
uncontrolled
surprisal
eng
uncontrolled
entropy
eng
uncontrolled
Persian
eng
uncontrolled
complex predicates
eng
uncontrolled
self-paced reading
eng
uncontrolled
eye-tracking
Psychologie
Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften
Referiert
Publikationsfonds der Universität Potsdam
Open Access
Universität Potsdam
9072
2016
2016
eng
1
15
postprint
1
--
--
--
Dependency Resolution Difficulty Increases with Distance in Persian Separable Complex Predicates
Delaying the appearance of a verb in a noun-verb dependency tends to increase processing difficulty at the verb; one explanation for this locality effect is decay and/or interference of the noun in working memory. Surprisal, an expectation-based account, predicts that delaying the appearance of a verb either renders it no more predictable or more predictable, leading respectively to a prediction of no effect of distance or a facilitation. Recently, Husain et al. (2014) suggested that when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is predictable (strong predictability), increasing argument-verb distance leads to facilitation effects, which is consistent with surprisal; but when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is not predictable (weak predictability), locality effects are seen. We investigated Husain et al.'s proposal using Persian complex predicates (CPs), which consist of a non-verbal element—a noun in the current study—and a verb. In CPs, once the noun has been read, the exact identity of the verb is highly predictable (strong predictability); this was confirmed using a sentence completion study. In two self-paced reading (SPR) and two eye-tracking (ET) experiments, we delayed the appearance of the verb by interposing a relative clause (Experiments 1 and 3) or a long PP (Experiments 2 and 4). We also included a simple Noun-Verb predicate configuration with the same distance manipulation; here, the exact identity of the verb was not predictable (weak predictability). Thus, the design crossed Predictability Strength and Distance. We found that, consistent with surprisal, the verb in the strong predictability conditions was read faster than in the weak predictability conditions. Furthermore, greater verb-argument distance led to slower reading times; strong predictability did not neutralize or attenuate the locality effects. As regards the effect of distance on dependency resolution difficulty, these four experiments present evidence in favor of working memory accounts of argument-verb dependency resolution, and against the surprisal-based expectation account of Levy (2008). However, another expectation-based measure, entropy, which was computed using the offline sentence completion data, predicts reading times in Experiment 1 but not in the other experiments. Because participants tend to produce more ungrammatical continuations in the long-distance condition in Experiment 1, we suggest that forgetting due to memory overload leads to greater entropy at the verb.
Evidence for Expectation and Memory-Based Accounts
urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-90728
online registration
Universität Potsdam, Publikationsfonds
PA 2016_12
<a href="http://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/opus4-ubp/frontdoor/index/index/docId/9071">Bibliographieeintrag der Originalveröffentlichung/Quelle</a>
1503,86
CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International
Molood S. Safavi
Samar Husain
Shravan Vasishth
Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe
290
eng
uncontrolled
Persian
eng
uncontrolled
complex predicates
eng
uncontrolled
expectation
eng
uncontrolled
eye-tracking
eng
uncontrolled
locality
eng
uncontrolled
self-paced reading
eng
uncontrolled
surprisal
eng
uncontrolled
entropy
Psychologie
open_access
Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften
Referiert
Open Access
Universität Potsdam
https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/files/9072/phr290.pdf