Working memory differences in long-distance dependency resolution
- There is a wealth of evidence showing that increasing the distance between an argument and its head leads to more processing effort, namely, locality effects: these are usually associated with constraints in working memory (DLT: Gibson, 2000: activation-based model: Lewis and Vasishth, 2005). In SOV languages, however, the opposite effect has been found: antilocality (see discussion in Levy et al., 2013). Antilocality effects can be explained by the expectation based approach as proposed by Levy (2008) or by the activation-based model of sentence processing as proposed by Lewis and Vasishth (2005). We report an eye-tracking and a self-paced reading study with sentences in Spanish together with measures of individual differences to examine the distinction between expectation- and memory based accounts, and within memory-based accounts the further distinction between DLT and the activation-based model. The experiments show that (i) antilocality effects as predicted by the expectation account appear only for high-capacity readers; (ii)There is a wealth of evidence showing that increasing the distance between an argument and its head leads to more processing effort, namely, locality effects: these are usually associated with constraints in working memory (DLT: Gibson, 2000: activation-based model: Lewis and Vasishth, 2005). In SOV languages, however, the opposite effect has been found: antilocality (see discussion in Levy et al., 2013). Antilocality effects can be explained by the expectation based approach as proposed by Levy (2008) or by the activation-based model of sentence processing as proposed by Lewis and Vasishth (2005). We report an eye-tracking and a self-paced reading study with sentences in Spanish together with measures of individual differences to examine the distinction between expectation- and memory based accounts, and within memory-based accounts the further distinction between DLT and the activation-based model. The experiments show that (i) antilocality effects as predicted by the expectation account appear only for high-capacity readers; (ii) increasing dependency length by interposing material that modifies the head of the dependency (the verb) produces stronger facilitation than increasing dependency length with material that does not modify the head; this is in agreement with the activation-based model but not with the expectation account; and (iii) a possible outcome of memory load on low-capacity readers is the increase in regressive saccades (locality effects as predicted by memory-based accounts) or, surprisingly, a speedup in the self-paced reading task; the latter consistent with good-enough parsing (Ferreira et al., 2002). In sum, the study suggests that individual differences in working memory capacity play a role in dependency resolution, and that some of the aspects of dependency resolution can be best explained with the activation-based model together with a prediction component.…
Author details: | Bruno NicenboimORCiDGND, Shravan VasishthORCiDGND, Carolina Gattei, Mariano Sigman, Reinhold KlieglORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00312 |
ISSN: | 1664-1078 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25852623 |
Title of parent work (English): | Frontiers in psychology |
Publisher: | Frontiers Research Foundation |
Place of publishing: | Lausanne |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2015 |
Publication year: | 2015 |
Release date: | 2017/03/27 |
Tag: | DLT; Spanish; activation; antilocality; expectation; individual differences; locality; working memory capacity |
Volume: | 6 |
Number of pages: | 16 |
Funding institution: | Minerva Foundation; Potsdam Graduate School; University of Potsdam; CONICET; James McDonnell Foundation 21st Century Science Initiative in Understanding Human Cognition-Scholar Award |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access |
Institution name at the time of the publication: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Linguistik / Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft |