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Processing contextual and lexical cues to focus evidence from eye movements in reading

  • Three eye movement experiments investigated the interaction between contextual and lexical focus cues during reading. Context was used to focus on either the indirect or direct object of a double object construction, which was followed by a remnant continuation that formed either a congruous or incongruous contrast with the contextually focused object. Experiment 1 demonstrated that remnants were more difficult to process when incongruous with the contextually focused constituent, indicating that context was effective in specifying focus. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated the interaction between context and lexical focus arising from the particle only which specifies focus on the subsequent adjacent element. When only preceded both objects (Experiment 2), the conflict between lexical and contextual focus cues disrupted processing of the remnant element and was resolved in favour of the contextually focused element. However, when only was placed between both objects (Experiment 3), cue-conflict disrupted processing earlier in theThree eye movement experiments investigated the interaction between contextual and lexical focus cues during reading. Context was used to focus on either the indirect or direct object of a double object construction, which was followed by a remnant continuation that formed either a congruous or incongruous contrast with the contextually focused object. Experiment 1 demonstrated that remnants were more difficult to process when incongruous with the contextually focused constituent, indicating that context was effective in specifying focus. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated the interaction between context and lexical focus arising from the particle only which specifies focus on the subsequent adjacent element. When only preceded both objects (Experiment 2), the conflict between lexical and contextual focus cues disrupted processing of the remnant element and was resolved in favour of the contextually focused element. However, when only was placed between both objects (Experiment 3), cue-conflict disrupted processing earlier in the sentence but did not appear to be fully resolved during on-line sentence processing. These findings reveal that the interplay between contextual and lexical cues to focus is important for establishing focus structure during on-line sentence processing.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author details:Antje SauermannORCiDGND, Ruth Filik, Kevin B. Paterson
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/01690965.2012.668197
ISSN:0169-0965
Title of parent work (English):Language and cognitive processes
Publisher:Wiley
Place of publishing:Hove
Publication type:Article
Language:English
Year of first publication:2013
Publication year:2013
Release date:2017/03/26
Tag:Discourse processing; Eye movements while reading; Focus particles; Sentence processing
Volume:28
Issue:6
Number of pages:29
First page:875
Last Page:903
Organizational units:Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik
Peer review:Referiert
Institution name at the time of the publication:Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Linguistik / Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
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