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Noun-phrase anaphors and focus: the informational load hypothesis
1Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University, USA. almor@gizmo.usc.edu
Psychological Review
|November 24, 1999
Summary
Processing noun-phrase (NP) anaphors in discourse is optimized for function. Reading times for NP anaphors indicate faster processing when their semantic cost is justified by discourse goals, like identifying antecedents or adding information.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Psycholinguistics
- Computational linguistics
Background:
- Noun-phrase (NP) anaphor resolution is crucial for discourse comprehension.
- Understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying NP anaphor processing is key to explaining language comprehension.
- Existing theories often overlook the interplay between processing costs and discourse functions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how discourse function influences the processing of NP anaphors.
- To test the hypothesis that NP anaphor processing is an optimization process balancing cost and function.
- To determine if processing costs are modulated by the semantic relation between anaphors and antecedents.
Main Methods:
- Five self-paced reading experiments were conducted.
- Anaphor functionality was manipulated by altering discourse focus.
- Processing cost was manipulated by varying semantic relations between anaphors and antecedents.
Main Results:
- Reading times for NP anaphors were significantly affected by their functional justification.
- Anaphors with greater functional justification (e.g., identifying antecedents) were processed faster.
- Processing costs were modulated by the semantic relationship between anaphors and their antecedents.
Conclusions:
- NP anaphor processing is not a homogeneous process; it is sensitive to discourse context and function.
- The processing of NP anaphors is an adaptive mechanism that optimizes for communicative efficiency.
- Findings challenge theories that do not account for the functional role of anaphors in discourse.
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