TY - JOUR A1 - Paape, Dario A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - von der Malsburg, Titus Raban T1 - Quadruplex negatio invertit? BT - the on-line processing of depth charge sentences JF - Journal of semantics N2 - So-called "depth charge" sentences (No head injury is too trivial to be ignored) are interpreted by the vast majority of speakers to mean the opposite of what their compositional semantics would dictate. The semantic inversion that is observed for sentences of this type is the strongest and most persistent linguistic illusion known to the field (Wason & Reich, 1979). However, it has recently been argued that the preferred interpretation arises not because of a prevailing failure of the processing system, but rather because the non-compositional meaning is grammaticalized in the form of a stored construction (Cook & Stevenson, 2010; Fortuin, 2014). In a series of five experiments, we investigate whether the depth charge effect is better explained by processing failure due to memory overload (the overloading hypothesis) or by the existence of an underlying grammaticalized construction with two available meanings (the ambiguity hypothesis). To our knowledge, our experiments are the first to explore the on-line processing profile of depth charge sentences. Overall, the data are consistent with specific variants of the ambiguity and overloading hypotheses while providing evidence against other variants. As an extension of the overloading hypothesis, we suggest two heuristic processes that may ultimately yield the incorrect reading when compositional processing is suspended for strategic reasons. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffaa009 SN - 0167-5133 SN - 1477-4593 VL - 37 IS - 4 SP - 509 EP - 555 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Paape, Dario A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Estimating the true cost of garden pathing: BT - a computational model of latent cognitive processes JF - Cognitive science N2 - What is the processing cost of being garden-pathed by a temporary syntactic ambiguity? We argue that comparing average reading times in garden-path versus non-garden-path sentences is not enough to answer this question. Trial-level contaminants such as inattention, the fact that garden pathing may occur non-deterministically in the ambiguous condition, and "triage" (rejecting the sentence without reanalysis; Fodor & Inoue, 2000) lead to systematic underestimates of the true cost of garden pathing. Furthermore, the "pure" garden-path effect due to encountering an unexpected word needs to be separated from the additional cost of syntactic reanalysis. To get more realistic estimates for the individual processing costs of garden pathing and syntactic reanalysis, we implement a novel computational model that includes trial-level contaminants as probabilistically occurring latent cognitive processes. The model shows a good predictive fit to existing reading time and judgment data. Furthermore, the latent-process approach captures differences between noun phrase/zero complement (NP/Z) garden-path sentences and semantically biased reduced relative clause (RRC) garden-path sentences: The NP/Z garden path occurs nearly deterministically but can be mostly eliminated by adding a comma. By contrast, the RRC garden path occurs with a lower probability, but disambiguation via semantic plausibility is not always effective. KW - garden-path effect KW - syntactic reanalysis KW - multinomial processing tree KW - latent processes KW - mixture modeling Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13186 SN - 0364-0213 SN - 1551-6709 VL - 46 IS - 8 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Malden, Mass. ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. T1 - Filling the Silence: Reactivation, not Reconstruction JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - In a self-paced reading experiment, we investigated the processing of sluicing constructions ("sluices") whose antecedent contained a known garden path structure in German. Results showed decreased processing times for sluices with garden-path antecedents as well as a disadvantage for antecedents with non-canonical word order downstream from the ellipsis site. A post-hoc analysis showed the garden-path advantage also to be present in the region right before the ellipsis site. While no existing account of ellipsis processing explicitly predicted the results, we argue that they are best captured by combining a local antecedent mismatch effect with memory trace reactivation through reanalysis. KW - ellipsis processing KW - garden-path effect KW - German KW - retrieval KW - reconstruction KW - self-paced reading Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00027 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 7 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. T1 - Filling the Silence BT - Reactivation, not Reconstruction JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - In a self-paced reading experiment, we investigated the processing of sluicing constructions (“sluices”) whose antecedent contained a known garden-path structure in German. Results showed decreased processing times for sluices with garden-path antecedents as well as a disadvantage for antecedents with non-canonical word order downstream from the ellipsis site. A post-hoc analysis showed the garden-path advantage also to be present in the region right before the ellipsis site. While no existing account of ellipsis processing explicitly predicted the results, we argue that they are best captured by combining a local antecedent mismatch effect with memory trace reactivation through reanalysis. KW - ellipsis processing KW - garden-path effect KW - German KW - retrieval KW - reconstruction KW - self-paced reading Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00027 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 7 SP - 1 EP - 18 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - GEN A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. T1 - Filling the Silence BT - Reactivation, not Reconstruction N2 - In a self-paced reading experiment, we investigated the processing of sluicing constructions (“sluices”) whose antecedent contained a known garden-path structure in German. Results showed decreased processing times for sluices with garden-path antecedents as well as a disadvantage for antecedents with non-canonical word order downstream from the ellipsis site. A post-hoc analysis showed the garden-path advantage also to be present in the region right before the ellipsis site. While no existing account of ellipsis processing explicitly predicted the results, we argue that they are best captured by combining a local antecedent mismatch effect with memory trace reactivation through reanalysis. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 285 KW - ellipsis processing KW - garden-path effect KW - German KW - retrieval KW - reconstruction KW - self-paced reading Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-90480 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 - JOUR A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Does antecedent complexity affect ellipsis processing? BT - An empirical investigation JF - Glossa : a journal of general linguistics 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. KW - antecedent complexity KW - ellipsis processing KW - memory pointer KW - self-paced reading KW - Bayes factor Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.290 SN - 2397-1835 VL - 2 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 29 PB - Ubiquity Press CY - London 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 - JOUR 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 JF - PLoS ONE 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. 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 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198620 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 13 IS - 6 SP - 1 EP - 46 PB - PLOS CY - San Francisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Paape, Dario A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Local Coherence and Preemptive Digging-in Effects in German JF - Language and speech 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. KW - Local coherence KW - digging-in effects KW - self-paced reading KW - SOPARSE KW - sentence processing KW - German Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830915608410 SN - 0023-8309 SN - 1756-6053 VL - 59 SP - 387 EP - 403 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Paape, Dario A1 - Avetisyan, Serine A1 - Lago, Sol A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Modeling misretrieval and feature substitution in agreement attraction BT - a computational evaluation JF - Cognitive science N2 - We present computational modeling results based on a self-paced reading study investigating number attraction effects in Eastern Armenian. We implement three novel computational models of agreement attraction in a Bayesian framework and compare their predictive fit to the data using k-fold cross-validation. We find that our data are better accounted for by an encoding-based model of agreement attraction, compared to a retrieval-based model. A novel methodological contribution of our study is the use of comprehension questions with open-ended responses, so that both misinterpretation of the number feature of the subject phrase and misassignment of the thematic subject role of the verb can be investigated at the same time. We find evidence for both types of misinterpretation in our study, sometimes in the same trial. However, the specific error patterns in our data are not fully consistent with any previously proposed model. KW - Agreement attraction KW - Eastern Armenian KW - Self-paced reading KW - Computational modeling Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13019 SN - 0364-0213 SN - 1551-6709 VL - 45 IS - 8 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Malden, Mass. ER - TY - THES A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. T1 - Antecedent complexity effects on ellipsis processing T1 - Einflüsse der Antezedenskomplexität auf die Verarbeitung von Ellipsen N2 - This dissertation explores whether the processing of ellipsis is affected by changes in the complexity of the antecedent, either due to added linguistic material or to the presence of a temporary ambiguity. Murphy (1985) hypothesized that ellipsis is resolved via a string copying procedure when the antecedent is within the same sentence, and that copying longer strings takes more time. Such an account also implies that the antecedent is copied without its structure, which in turn implies that recomputing its syntax and semantics may be necessary at the ellipsis gap. Alternatively, several accounts predict null effects of antecedent complexity, as well as no reparsing. These either involve a structure copying mechanism that is cost-free and whose finishing time is thus independent of the form of the antecedent (Frazier & Clifton, 2001), treat ellipsis as a pointer into content-addressable memory with direct access (Martin & McElree, 2008, 2009), or assume that one structure is ‘shared’ between antecedent and gap (Frazier & Clifton, 2005). In a self-paced reading study on German sluicing, temporarily ambiguous garden-path clauses were used as antecedents, but no evidence of reparsing in the form of a slowdown at the ellipsis site was found. Instead, results suggest that antecedents which had been reanalyzed from an initially incorrect structure were easier to retrieve at the gap. This finding that can be explained within the framework of cue-based retrieval parsing (Lewis & Vasishth, 2005), where additional syntactic operations on a structure yield memory reactivation effects. Two further self-paced reading studies on German bare argument ellipsis and English verb phrase ellipsis investigated if adding linguistic content to the antecedent would increase processing times for the ellipsis, and whether insufficiently demanding comprehension tasks may have been responsible for earlier null results (Frazier & Clifton, 2000; Martin & McElree, 2008). It has also been suggested that increased antecedent complexity should shorten rather than lengthen retrieval times by providing more unique memory features (Hofmeister, 2011). Both experiments failed to yield reliable evidence that antecedent complexity affects ellipsis processing times in either direction, irrespectively of task demands. Finally, two eye-tracking studies probed more deeply into the proposed reactivation-induced speedup found in the first experiment. The first study used three different kinds of French garden-path sentences as antecedents, with two of them failing to yield evidence for reactivation. Moreover, the third sentence type showed evidence suggesting that having failed to assign a structure to the antecedent leads to a slowdown at the ellipsis site, as well as regressions towards the ambiguous part of the sentence. The second eye-tracking study used the same materials as the initial self-paced reading study on German, with results showing a pattern similar to the one originally observed, with some notable differences. Overall, the experimental results are compatible with the view that adding linguistic material to the antecedent has no or very little effect on the ease with which ellipsis is resolved, which is consistent with the predictions of cost-free copying, pointer-based approaches and structure sharing. Additionally, effects of the antecedent’s parsing history on ellipsis processing may be due to reactivation, the availability of multiple representations in memory, or complete failure to retrieve a matching target. N2 - Diese Dissertation untersucht, ob die Verarbeitung elliptischer Strukturen von Veränderungen der Komplexität des Antezedens beeinflusst wird, entweder durch zusätzliches linguistisches Material oder durch die Präsenz einer temporären Ambiguität. Murphy (1985) stellte die Hypothese auf, dass Ellipsen durch das Kopieren von Zeichenketten aufgelöst werden, sofern das Antezedens sich im selben Satz befindet, und dass das Kopieren längerer Zeichenketten mehr Zeit in Anspruch nimmt. Ein solcher Ansatz impliziert auch, dass das Antezedens ohne seine Struktur kopiert wird, was wiederum impliziert, dass seine Struktur und Semantik an der Auslassungsstelle möglicherweise erneut berechnet werden müssen. Alternativ existieren mehrere Ansätze, die Nulleffekte der Antezedenskomplexität sowie keine strukturelle Neuberechnung vorhersagen. Diese Ansätze involvieren entweder einen Mechanismus, der die bestehende Struktur kostenfrei überträgt und dessen Latenz von der Form des Antezedens unabhängig ist (Frazier & Clifton, 2001), behandeln die Ellipse als Verweis in einen inhaltsadressierbaren Gedächtnisspeicher (Martin & McElree, 2008, 2009) oder nehmen an, dass die Struktur des Antezedens mit der Ellipse "geteilt" wird (Frazier & Clifton, 2005). In einer Self-Paced Reading-Studie mit deutschen Sluicing-Strukturen wurden temporär ambige Garden Path-Sätze als Antezedenten verwendet, es konnte aber keine Evidenz für strukturelle Neuberechnung in Form höherer Lesezeiten am Punkt der Ellipse gefunden werden. Stattdessen zeigte sich, dass Antezedenten, deren ursprünglich inkorrekt zugewiesene Strukturen reanalysiert worden waren, am Punkt der Ellipse leichter abzurufen waren. Dieses Resultat kann im Kontext des Cue-Based Retrieval Parsing (Lewis & Vasishth, 2005) erklärt werden, wo zusätzliche syntaktische Operationen auf einer Struktur zur Stärkung der assoziierten Gedächtnisspur führen. Zwei weitere Self-Paced Reading-Studien zu deutschen Bare Argument-Ellipsen und englischen VP-Ellipsen sollten ausloten, ob zusätzliches linguistisches Material im Antezedens zu längeren Verarbeitungszeiten für die Ellipse führen würde und ob zu wenig fordernde Verständnistests der Grund für frühere Nullresultate waren (Frazier & Clifton, 2000; Martin & McElree, 2008). Auch gibt es die Theorie, dass erhöhte Komplexität des Antezedens Abrufzeiten verkürzen und nicht verlangsamen sollte, da mehr einzigartige Gedächtnismerkmale zur Verfügung stehen (Hofmeister, 2011). Beide Experimente lieferten keine Evidenz für einen Einfluss der Antezedenskomplexität auf die Verarbeitungszeit der Ellipse in die eine oder in die andere Richtung, unabhängig von der Aufgabenschwierigkeit. Schließlich wurde in zwei Eyetracking-Studien der in der ersten Studie beschriebene Reaktivierungseffekt genauer betrachtet. Die erste dieser Studien verwendete drei verschiedene Typen von Garden Path-Strukturen im Französischen als Antezedenten, von denen zwei keine Evidenz für Reaktivierung zeigten. Darüber hinaus zeigte die dritte getestete Struktur Evidenz dafür, dass eine Verlangsamung am Punkt der Ellipse sowie Regressionen zum Antezedens auftreten, wenn dem Antezedens anfänglich keine Struktur zugewiesen wurde. Die zweite Eyetracking-Studie verwendete dieselben deutschen Materialen wie die ursprüngliche Self-Paced Reading-Studie, mit größtenteils ähnlichen Resultaten und einigen beachtenswerten Abweichungen. Insgesamt sind die experimentellen Ergebnisse mit der Ansicht kompatibel, dass das Hinzufügen von linguistischen Material zum Antezedens keine oder nur sehr minimale Effekte auf die Verarbeitungszeit der Ellipse hat, was mit den Vorhersagen auf Basis eines kostenfreien Kopiermechanismus, eines inhaltsadressierten Gedächtnisspeichers oder einer "geteilten" Struktur übereinstimmt. Effekte, die sich aus der Verarbeitungsgeschichte des Antezedens ergeben, sind möglicherweise auf Reaktivierung, das Vorhandensein mehrerer Gedächtnisspuren oder ein komplettes Scheitern des Gedächtnisabrufs zurückzuführen. KW - ellipsis KW - antecedent complexity KW - psycholinguistics KW - task demands KW - garden path KW - Ellipse KW - Psycholinguistik KW - Temporäre Ambiguität Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-411689 ER -