TY - GEN A1 - Stone, Kate A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Rösler, Frank T1 - Understanding the effects of constraint and predictability in ERP T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Intuitively, strongly constraining contexts should lead to stronger probabilistic representations of sentences in memory. Encountering unexpected words could therefore be expected to trigger costlier shifts in these representations than expected words. However, psycholinguistic measures commonly used to study probabilistic processing, such as the N400 event-related potential (ERP) component, are sensitive to word predictability but not to contextual constraint. Some research suggests that constraint-related processing cost may be measurable via an ERP positivity following the N400, known as the anterior post-N400 positivity (PNP). The PNP is argued to reflect update of a sentence representation and to be distinct from the posterior P600, which reflects conflict detection and reanalysis. However, constraint-related PNP findings are inconsistent. We sought to conceptually replicate Federmeier et al. (2007) and Kuperberg et al. (2020), who observed that the PNP, but not the N400 or the P600, was affected by constraint at unexpected but plausible words. Using a pre-registered design and statistical approach maximising power, we demonstrated a dissociated effect of predictability and constraint: strong evidence for predictability but not constraint in the N400 window, and strong evidence for constraint but not predictability in the later window. However, the constraint effect was consistent with a P600 and not a PNP, suggesting increased conflict between a strong representation and unexpected input rather than greater update of the representation. We conclude that either a simple strong/weak constraint design is not always sufficient to elicit the PNP, or that previous PNP constraint findings could be an artifact of smaller sample size. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 829 KW - N400 KW - anterior PNP KW - posterior P600 KW - probabilistic processing KW - constraint KW - predictability KW - entropy Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-587594 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 829 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Stone, Kate A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Malsburg, Titus von der T1 - Does entropy modulate the prediction of German long-distance verb particles? T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - In this paper we examine the effect of uncertainty on readers’ predictions about meaning. In particular, we were interested in how uncertainty might influence the likelihood of committing to a specific sentence meaning. We conducted two event-related potential (ERP) experiments using particle verbs such as turn down and manipulated uncertainty by constraining the context such that readers could be either highly certain about the identity of a distant verb particle, such as turn the bed […] down, or less certain due to competing particles, such as turn the music […] up/down. The study was conducted in German, where verb particles appear clause-finally and may be separated from the verb by a large amount of material. We hypothesised that this separation would encourage readers to predict the particle, and that high certainty would make prediction of a specific particle more likely than lower certainty. If a specific particle was predicted, this would reflect a strong commitment to sentence meaning that should incur a higher processing cost if the prediction is wrong. If a specific particle was less likely to be predicted, commitment should be weaker and the processing cost of a wrong prediction lower. If true, this could suggest that uncertainty discourages predictions via an unacceptable cost-benefit ratio. However, given the clear predictions made by the literature, it was surprisingly unclear whether the uncertainty manipulation affected the two ERP components studied, the N400 and the PNP. Bayes factor analyses showed that evidence for our a priori hypothesised effect sizes was inconclusive, although there was decisive evidence against a priori hypothesised effect sizes larger than 1μV for the N400 and larger than 3μV for the PNP. We attribute the inconclusive finding to the properties of verb-particle dependencies that differ from the verb-noun dependencies in which the N400 and PNP are often studied. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 785 Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-562312 SN - 1866-8364 SP - 1 EP - 25 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - GEN A1 - Patil, Umesh A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Lewis, Richard L. T1 - Retrieval interference in syntactic processing BT - the case of reflexive binding in english T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - It has been proposed that in online sentence comprehension the dependency between a reflexive pronoun such as himself/herself and its antecedent is resolved using exclusively syntactic constraints. Under this strictly syntactic search account, Principle A of the binding theory which requires that the antecedent c-command the reflexive within the same clause that the reflexive occurs in constrains the parser's search for an antecedent. The parser thus ignores candidate antecedents that might match agreement features of the reflexive (e.g., gender) but are ineligible as potential antecedents because they are in structurally illicit positions. An alternative possibility accords no special status to structural constraints: in addition to using Principle A, the parser also uses non-structural cues such as gender to access the antecedent. According to cue -based retrieval theories of memory (e.g., Lewis and Vasishth, 2005), the use of non-structural cues should result in increased retrieval times and occasional errors when candidates partially match the cues, even if the candidates are in structurally illicit positions. In this paper, we first show how the retrieval processes that underlie the reflexive binding are naturally realized in the Lewis and Vasishth (2005) model. We present the predictions of the model under the assumption that both structural and non-structural cues are used during retrieval, and provide a critical analysis of previous empirical studies that failed to find evidence for the use of non-structural cues, suggesting that these failures may be Type II errors. We use this analysis and the results of further modeling to motivate a new empirical design that we use in an eye tracking study. The results of this study confirm the key predictions of the model concerning the use of non-structural cues, and are inconsistent with the strictly syntactic search account. These results present a challenge for theories advocating the infallibility of the human parser in the case of reflexive resolution, and provide support for the inclusion of agreement features such as gender in the set of retrieval cues. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 493 KW - sentence processing KW - anaphor resolution KW - memory retrieval KW - interference KW - computational modeling KW - eye tracking Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-407987 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 493 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Kentner, Gerrit A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Prosodic focus marking in silent reading BT - effects of discourse context and rhythm T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Understanding a sentence and integrating it into the discourse depends upon the identification of its focus, which, in spoken German, is marked by accentuation. In the case of written language, which lacks explicit cues to accent, readers have to draw on other kinds of information to determine the focus. We study the joint or interactive effects of two kinds of information that have no direct representation in print but have each been shown to be influential in the reader's text comprehension: (i) the (low-level) rhythmic-prosodic structure that is based on the distribution of lexically stressed syllables, and (ii) the (high-level) discourse context that is grounded in the memory of previous linguistic content. Systematically manipulating these factors, we examine the way readers resolve a syntactic ambiguity involving the scopally ambiguous focus operator auch (engl. "too") in both oral (Experiment 1) and silent reading (Experiment 2). The results of both experiments attest that discourse context and local linguistic rhythm conspire to guide the syntactic and, concomitantly, the focus-structural analysis of ambiguous sentences. We argue that reading comprehension requires the (implicit) assignment of accents according to the focus structure and that, by establishing a prominence profile, the implicit prosodic rhythm directly affects accent assignment. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 467 KW - linguistic rhythm KW - focus KW - accent KW - reading KW - implicit prosody KW - syntactic parsing KW - sentence comprehension KW - eye tracking Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-407976 IS - 467 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. A1 - Hemforth, Barbara A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Processing of ellipsis with garden-path antecedents in French and German BT - Evidence from eye tracking T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - In a self-paced reading study on German sluicing, Paape (Paape, 2016) found that reading times were shorter at the ellipsis site when the antecedent was a temporarily ambiguous garden-path structure. As a post-hoc explanation of this finding, Paape assumed that the antecedent’s memory representation was reactivated during syntactic reanalysis, making it easier to retrieve. In two eye tracking experiments, we subjected the reactivation hypothesis to further empirical scrutiny. Experiment 1, carried out in French, showed no evidence in favor in the reactivation hypothesis. Instead, results for one out of the three types of garden-path sentences that were tested suggest that subjects sometimes failed to resolve the temporary ambiguity in the antecedent clause, and subsequently failed to resolve the ellipsis. The results of Experiment 2, a conceptual replication of Paape’s (Paape, 2016) original study carried out in German, are compatible with the reactivation hypothesis, but leave open the possibility that the observed speedup for ambiguous antecedents may be due to occasional retrievals of an incorrect structure. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 452 KW - verb-phrase ellipsis KW - lingering misinterpretation KW - sentence comprehension KW - memory KW - ambiguities KW - activation KW - hypothesis KW - discourse KW - clauses Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-414062 IS - 452 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Local coherence and preemptive digging-in effects in German T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - SOPARSE predicts so-called local coherence effects: locally plausible but globally impossible parses of substrings can exert a distracting influence during sentence processing. Additionally, it predicts digging-in effects: the longer the parser stays committed to a particular analysis, the harder it becomes to inhibit that analysis. We investigated the interaction of these two predictions using German sentences. Results from a self-paced reading study show that the processing difficulty caused by a local coherence can be reduced by first allowing the globally correct parse to become entrenched, which supports SOPARSE’s assumptions. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 417 KW - local coherence KW - digging-in effects KW - self-paced reading KW - SOPARSE KW - sentence processing KW - German Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-405337 IS - 417 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Does antecedent complexity affect ellipsis processing? BT - An empirical investigation N2 - In two self-paced reading experiments, we investigated the effect of changes in antecedent complexity on processing times for ellipsis. Pointer- or “sharing”-based approaches to ellipsis processing (Frazier & Clifton 2001, 2005; Martin & McElree 2008) predict no effect of antecedent complexity on reading times at the ellipsis site while other accounts predict increased antecedent complexity to either slow down processing (Murphy 1985) or to speed it up (Hofmeister 2011). Experiment 1 manipulated antecedent complexity and elision, yielding evidence against a speedup at the ellipsis site and in favor of a null effect. In order to investigate possible superficial processing on part of participants, Experiment 2 manipulated the amount of attention required to correctly respond to end-of-sentence comprehension probes, yielding evidence against a complexity-induced slowdown at the ellipsis site. Overall, our results are compatible with pointer-based approaches while casting doubt on the notion that changes antecedent complexity lead to measurable differences in ellipsis processing speed. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 350 KW - antecedent complexity KW - ellipsis processing KW - memory pointer KW - self-paced reading KW - Bayes factor Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-403373 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Logačev, Pavel A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Understanding underspecification BT - A comparison of two computational implementations N2 - Swets et al. (2008. Underspecification of syntactic ambiguities: Evidence from self-paced reading. Memory and Cognition, 36(1), 201–216) presented evidence that the so-called ambiguity advantage [Traxler et al. (1998). Adjunct attachment is not a form of lexical ambiguity resolution. Journal of Memory and Language, 39(4), 558–592], which has been explained in terms of the Unrestricted Race Model, can equally well be explained by assuming underspecification in ambiguous conditions driven by task-demands. Specifically, if comprehension questions require that ambiguities be resolved, the parser tends to make an attachment: when questions are about superficial aspects of the target sentence, readers tend to pursue an underspecification strategy. It is reasonable to assume that individual differences in strategy will play a significant role in the application of such strategies, so that studying average behaviour may not be informative. In order to study the predictions of the good-enough processing theory, we implemented two versions of underspecification: the partial specification model (PSM), which is an implementation of the Swets et al. proposal, and a more parsimonious version, the non-specification model (NSM). We evaluate the relative fit of these two kinds of underspecification to Swets et al.’s data; as a baseline, we also fitted three models that assume no underspecification. We find that a model without underspecification provides a somewhat better fit than both underspecification models, while the NSM model provides a better fit than the PSM. We interpret the results as lack of unambiguous evidence in favour of underspecification; however, given that there is considerable existing evidence for good-enough processing in the literature, it is reasonable to assume that some underspecification might occur. Under this assumption, the results can be interpreted as tentative evidence for NSM over PSM. More generally, our work provides a method for choosing between models of real-time processes in sentence comprehension that make qualitative predictions about the relationship between several dependent variables. We believe that sentence processing research will greatly benefit from a wider use of such methods. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 295 KW - Computational modelling KW - Underspecification KW - Shallow processing Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-93441 SP - 996 EP - 1012 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Safavi, Molood S. A1 - Husain, Samar A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Dependency Resolution Difficulty Increases with Distance in Persian Separable Complex Predicates BT - Evidence for Expectation and Memory-Based Accounts N2 - 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. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 290 KW - Persian KW - complex predicates KW - expectation KW - eye-tracking KW - locality KW - self-paced reading KW - surprisal KW - entropy Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-90728 SP - 1 EP - 15 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Logacev, Pavel A1 - Gattei, Carolina A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - When High-Capacity Readers Slow Down and Low-Capacity Readers Speed Up BT - Working Memory and Locality Effects N2 - We examined the effects of argument-head distance in SVO and SOV languages (Spanish and German), while taking into account readers' working memory capacity and controlling for expectation (Levy, 2008) and other factors. We predicted only locality effects, that is, a slowdown produced by increased dependency distance (Gibson, 2000; Lewis and Vasishth, 2005). Furthermore, we expected stronger locality effects for readers with low working memory capacity. Contrary to our predictions, low-capacity readers showed faster reading with increased distance, while high-capacity readers showed locality effects. We suggest that while the locality effects are compatible with memory-based explanations, the speedup of low-capacity readers can be explained by an increased probability of retrieval failure. We present a computational model based on ACT-R built under the previous assumptions, which is able to give a qualitative account for the present data and can be tested in future research. Our results suggest that in some cases, interpreting longer RTs as indexing increased processing difficulty and shorter RTs as facilitation may be too simplistic: The same increase in processing difficulty may lead to slowdowns in high-capacity readers and speedups in low-capacity ones. Ignoring individual level capacity differences when investigating locality effects may lead to misleading conclusions. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 288 KW - locality KW - working memory capacity KW - individual differences KW - Spanish KW - German KW - ACT-R Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-90663 SP - 1 EP - 24 ER -