Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10459799 | Journal of Memory and Language | 2005 | 21 Pages |
Abstract
In three eye-movement monitoring experiments, participants' working memory capacity was assessed and they read sentences containing subject-extracted and object-extracted relative clauses. In Experiment 1, sentences lacked helpful semantic cues, object-relatives were harder to process than subject relatives, and working memory capacity did not moderate syntactic complexity effects. In Experiments 2 and 3, categorical distinctions between critical nouns provided helpful semantic cues to syntactic structure and interpretation. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that helpful semantic cues reduced or eliminated syntactic complexity effects, and that this reduction was not produced by lexical properties of specific verbs. Further, in Experiment 2 working memory capacity moderated the interaction of syntactic complexity and semantic cues.
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Authors
Matthew J. Traxler, Rihana S. Williams, Shelley A. Blozis, Robin K. Morris,