TY - JOUR A1 - Avetisyan, Serine A1 - Lago, Sol A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Does case marking affect agreement attraction in comprehension? JF - Journal of memory and language N2 - Previous studies have suggested that distinctive case marking on noun phrases reduces attraction effects in production, i.e., the tendency to produce a verb that agrees with a nonsubject noun. An important open question is whether attraction effects are modulated by case information in sentence comprehension. To address this question, we conducted three attraction experiments in Armenian, a language with a rich and productive case system. The experiments showed clear attraction effects, and they also revealed an overall role of case marking such that participants showed faster response and reading times when the nouns in the sentence had different case. However, we found little indication that distinctive case marking modulated attraction effects. We present a theoretical proposal of how case and number information may be used differentially during agreement licensing in comprehension. More generally, this work sheds light on the nature of the retrieval cues deployed when completing morphosyntactic dependencies. KW - subject-verb agreement KW - attraction KW - Case KW - Eastern Armenian KW - cue-based KW - retrieval KW - comprehension Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2020.104087 SN - 0749-596X SN - 1096-0821 VL - 112 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Baayen, Harald R. A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold A1 - Bates, Douglas T1 - The cave of shadows: Addressing the human factor with generalized additive mixed models JF - Journal of memory and language KW - Generalized additive mixed models KW - Within-experiment adaptation KW - Autocorrelation KW - Experimental time series KW - Confirmatory versus exploratory data analysis KW - Model selection Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2016.11.006 SN - 0749-596X SN - 1096-0821 VL - 94 SP - 206 EP - 234 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bartek, Brian A1 - Lewis, Richard L. A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Smith, Mason R. T1 - In Search of on-line locality effects in sentence comprehension JF - Journal of experimental psychology : Learning, memory, and cognition N2 - Many comprehension theories assert that increasing the distance between elements participating in a linguistic relation (e.g., a verb and a noun phrase argument) increases the difficulty of establishing that relation during on-line comprehension. Such locality effects are expected to increase reading times and are thought to reveal properties and limitations of the short-term memory system that supports comprehension. Despite their theoretical importance and putative ubiquity, however, evidence for on-line locality effects is quite narrow linguistically and methodologically: It is restricted almost exclusively to self-paced reading of complex structures involving a particular class of syntactic relation. We present 4 experiments (2 self-paced reading and 2 eyetracking experiments) that demonstrate locality effects in the course of establishing subject-verb dependencies; locality effects are seen even in materials that can be read quickly and easily. These locality effects are observable in the earliest possible eye-movement measures and are of much shorter duration than previously reported effects. To account for the observed empirical patterns, we outline a processing model of the adaptive control of button pressing and eye movements. This model makes progress toward the goal of eliminating linking assumptions between memory constructs and empirical measures in favor of explicit theories of the coordinated control of motor responses and parsing. KW - locality effects KW - working memory KW - sentence processing Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024194 SN - 0278-7393 VL - 37 IS - 5 SP - 1178 EP - 1198 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Beck, Sigrid A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Multiple focus N2 - This paper presents the results of an experimental study on multiple focus configurations, that is, structures containing two nested focus-sensitive operators plus two foci supposed to associate with those operators. There has been controversial discussion in the semantic literature regarding whether or not an interpretation is acceptable that corresponds to this association. While the data are unclear, the issue is of considerable theoretical significance, as it distinguishes between the available theories of focus interpretation. Some theories (e. g. Rooth's 1992) predict such a pattern of association with focus to be impossible, while others (such as Wold's 1996) predict it to be acceptable. The results of our study show the data to be unacceptable rather than acceptable, favouring important aspects of the theory of focus interpretation developed by Rooth. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://jos.oxfordjournals.org/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/Jos/Ffp001 SN - 0167-5133 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Boston, Marisa Ferrara A1 - Hale, John T. A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Parallel processing and sentence comprehension difficulty JF - Language and cognitive processes N2 - Eye fixation durations during normal reading correlate with processing difficulty, but the specific cognitive mechanisms reflected in these measures are not well understood. This study finds support in German readers' eye fixations for two distinct difficulty metrics: surprisal, which reflects the change in probabilities across syntactic analyses as new words are integrated; and retrieval, which quantifies comprehension difficulty in terms of working memory constraints. We examine the predictions of both metrics using a family of dependency parsers indexed by an upper limit on the number of candidate syntactic analyses they retain at successive words. Surprisal models all fixation measures and regression probability. By contrast, retrieval does not model any measure in serial processing. As more candidate analyses are considered in parallel at each word, retrieval can account for the same measures as surprisal. This pattern suggests an important role for ranked parallelism in theories of sentence comprehension. KW - Reading KW - Parsing KW - Computer model KW - Corpus Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/01690965.2010.492228 SN - 0169-0965 VL - 26 IS - 3 SP - 301 EP - 349 PB - Wiley CY - Hove ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Burchert, Frank A1 - Hanne, Sandra A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Sentence comprehension disorders in aphasia the concept of chance performance revisited JF - Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal N2 - Background: In behavioural tests of sentence comprehension in aphasia, correct and incorrect responses are often randomly distributed. Such a pattern of chance performance is a typical trait of Broca's aphasia, but can be found in other aphasic syndromes as well. Many researchers have argued that chance behaviour is the result of a guessing strategy, which is adopted in the face of a syntactic breakdown in sentence processing. Aims: Capitalising on new evidence from recent studies investigating online sentence comprehension in aphasia using the visual world paradigm, the aim of this paper is to review the concept of chance performance as a reflection of a syntactic impairment in sentence processing and to re-examine the conventional interpretation of chance performance as a guessing behaviour. Main Contribution: Based on a review of recent evidence from visual world paradigm studies, we argue that the assumption of chance performance equalling guessing is not necessarily compatible with actual real-time parsing procedures in people with aphasia. We propose a reinterpretation of the concept of chance performance by assuming that there are two distinct processing mechanisms underlying sentence comprehension in aphasia. Correct responses are always the result of normal-like parsing mechanisms, even in those cases where the overall performance pattern is at chance. Incorrect responses, on the other hand, are the result of intermittent deficiencies of the parser. Hence the random guessing behaviour that persons with aphasia often display does not necessarily reflect a syntactic breakdown in sentence comprehension and a random selection between alternatives. Instead it should be regarded as a result of temporal deficient parsing procedures in otherwise normal-like comprehension routines. Conclusion: Our conclusion is that the consideration of behavioural offline data alone may not be sufficient to interpret a performance in language tests and subsequently draw theoretical conclusions about language impairments. Rather it is important to call on additional data from online studies that look at language processing in real time in order to gain a comprehensive picture about syntactic comprehension abilities of people with aphasia and possible underlying deficits. KW - Sentence comprehension in aphasia KW - Chance performance KW - Visual world paradigm KW - Eye tracking KW - Online sentence processing Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2012.730603 SN - 0268-7038 VL - 27 IS - 1 SP - 112 EP - 125 PB - Wiley CY - Hove ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bürki, Audrey A1 - Alario, F-Xavier A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - When words collide: Bayesian meta-analyses of distractor and target properties in the picture-word interference paradigm JF - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology N2 - In the picture-word interference paradigm, participants name pictures while ignoring a written or spoken distractor word. Naming times to the pictures are slowed down by the presence of the distractor word. The present study investigates in detail the impact of distractor and target word properties on picture naming times, building on the seminal study by Miozzo and Caramazza. We report the results of several Bayesian meta-analyses based on 26 datasets. These analyses provide estimates of effect sizes and their precision for several variables and their interactions. They show the reliability of the distractor frequency effect on picture naming latencies (latencies decrease as the frequency of the distractor increases) and demonstrate for the first time the impact of distractor length, with longer naming latencies for trials with longer distractors. Moreover, distractor frequency interacts with target word frequency to predict picture naming latencies. The methodological and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. KW - Picture-word interference KW - Bayesian meta-analysis KW - distractor frequency Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218221114644 SN - 1747-0218 SN - 1747-0226 VL - 76 IS - 6 SP - 1410 EP - 1430 PB - Sage Publications CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bürki-Foschini, Audrey Damaris A1 - Elbuy, Shereen A1 - Madec, Sylvain A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - What did we learn from forty years of research on semantic interference? BT - a Bayesian meta-analysis JF - Journal of memory and language N2 - When participants in an experiment have to name pictures while ignoring distractor words superimposed on the picture or presented auditorily (i.e., picture-word interference paradigm), they take more time when the word to be named (or target) and distractor words are from the same semantic category (e.g., cat-dog). This experimental effect is known as the semantic interference effect, and is probably one of the most studied in the language production literature. The functional origin of the effect and the exact conditions in which it occurs are however still debated. Since Lupker (1979) reported the effect in the first response time experiment about 40 years ago, more than 300 similar experiments have been conducted. The semantic interference effect was replicated in many experiments, but several studies also reported the absence of an effect in a subset of experimental conditions. The aim of the present study is to provide a comprehensive theoretical review of the existing evidence to date and several Bayesian meta-analyses and meta-regressions to determine the size of the effect and explore the experimental conditions in which the effect surfaces. The results are discussed in the light of current debates about the functional origin of the semantic interference effect and its implications for our understanding of the language production system. KW - Bayesian random effects meta-analysis KW - picture-word interference KW - semantic interference KW - language production Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2020.104125 SN - 0749-596X SN - 1096-0821 VL - 114 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Drenhaus, Heiner A1 - Zimmermann, Malte A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Exhaustiveness effects in clefts are not truth-functional JF - Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience N2 - While it is widely acknowledged in the formal semantic literature that both the truth-functional focus particle only and it-clefts convey exhaustiveness, the nature and source of exhaustiveness effects with it-clefts remain contested. We describe a questionnaire study (n = 80) and an event-related brain potentials (ERP) study (n = 16) that investigated the violation of exhaustiveness in German only-foci versus it-clefts. The offline study showed that a violation of exhaustivity with only is less acceptable than the violation with it-clefts, suggesting a difference in the nature of exhaustivity interpretation in the two environments. The ERP-results confirm that this difference can be seen in online processing as well: a violation of exhaustiveness in only-foci elicited a centro-posterior positivity (600-800ms), whereas a violation in it-clefts induced a globally distributed N400 pattern (400-600ms). The positivity can be interpreted as a reanalysis process and more generally as a process of context updating. The N400 effect in it-clefts is interpreted as indexing a cancelation process that is functionally distinct from the only case. The ERP study is, to our knowledge, the first evidence from an online experimental paradigm which shows that the violation of exhaustiveness involves different underlying processes in the two structural environments. KW - ERP KW - It- clefts KW - Only-foci KW - Information structure KW - German Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2010.10.004 SN - 0911-6044 VL - 24 IS - 3 SP - 320 EP - 337 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Engbert, Ralf A1 - Rabe, Maximilian Michael A1 - Schwetlick, Lisa A1 - Seelig, Stefan A. A1 - Reich, Sebastian A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Data assimilation in dynamical cognitive science JF - Trends in cognitive sciences N2 - Dynamical models make specific assumptions about cognitive processes that generate human behavior. In data assimilation, these models are tested against timeordered data. Recent progress on Bayesian data assimilation demonstrates that this approach combines the strengths of statistical modeling of individual differences with the those of dynamical cognitive models. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.11.006 SN - 1364-6613 SN - 1879-307X VL - 26 IS - 2 SP - 99 EP - 102 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -