Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Working memory constraints on the processing of syntactic ambiguity.

M C MacDonald1, M A Just, P A Carpenter

  • 1Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Cognitive Psychology
|January 1, 1992
PubMed
Summary

Working-memory capacity influences how readers process syntactic ambiguities. Higher capacity allows maintaining multiple interpretations, while lower capacity favors the most probable one.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Climate adaptation for rural water and sanitation systems in the Solomon Islands: A community scale systems model for decision support.

The Science of the total environment·2020
Same author

Recipient and donor age impact the risk of developing chronic GvHD in children after allogeneic hematopoietic transplant.

Bone marrow transplantation·2016
Same author

Confounding factors affecting the National Institutes of Health (NIH) chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease Organ-Specific Score and global severity.

Bone marrow transplantation·2016
Same author

Investigator feedback about the 2005 NIH diagnostic and scoring criteria for chronic GVHD.

Bone marrow transplantation·2014
Same author

Comparative studies of comprehension: An investigation of Chinese, Norwegian, and English.

Memory & cognition·2013
Same author

Characteristics of chronic GVHD after cord blood transplantation.

Bone marrow transplantation·2013

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Computational Linguistics

Background:

  • Syntactic ambiguity resolution is a key aspect of language comprehension.
  • Working memory capacity is known to affect cognitive tasks, but its specific role in parsing ambiguity is less understood.
  • Previous models often focus on linguistic factors, with less emphasis on individual cognitive constraints.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose and test a model linking working-memory capacity to syntactic parsing and ambiguity resolution.
  • To investigate how individual differences in working memory affect the processing of temporary syntactic ambiguities.
  • To determine if working memory capacity influences the maintenance of multiple syntactic interpretations.

Main Methods:

  • Developed a computational model predicting the impact of working memory on syntactic parsing.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Conducted four experiments measuring word-by-word reading times for sentences with temporary syntactic ambiguities.
  • Assessed participants' working-memory capacity using the Reading Span task.

    • Main Results:

    • Readers engage in additional processing upon encountering ambiguities, supporting the initial activation of multiple interpretations.
    • Individuals with higher working-memory capacity maintained both interpretations for a longer duration (several words).
    • Individuals with lower working-memory capacity quickly reverted to processing only the most probable interpretation.

    Conclusions:

    • Working-memory capacity acts as a constraint on syntactic parsing, influencing ambiguity resolution.
    • The duration of maintaining multiple syntactic representations is modulated by individual working-memory limitations.
    • The findings support a model where cognitive capacity plays a crucial role in real-time language comprehension.