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Retrieval cues and syntactic ambiguity resolution: Speed-accuracy tradeoff evidence
Andrea E Martin1,2,3, Brian McElree3
1Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Language, Cognition and Neuroscience
|May 28, 2019
Summary
Syntactic ambiguity resolution in language processing increases interpretation time. However, semantic cues aid accuracy, supporting cue-driven retrieval models in sentence comprehension.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Cognitive Science
- Computational Linguistics
Background:
- Language comprehension requires resolving syntactic ambiguity, which impacts processing speed and accuracy.
- Increased reaction times to ambiguous sentences are debated as either slower processing or reduced information quality.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of syntactic ambiguity on processing speed and accuracy using the speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) procedure.
- To examine how semantic cues influence reanalysis during syntactic ambiguity resolution.
Main Methods:
- Employed the speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) procedure to measure processing speed and accuracy.
- Manipulated syntactic ambiguity and semantic similarity between disambiguating verbs and sentence nouns.
Main Results:
- Ambiguous sentences required an average of 250ms longer for interpretation compared to unambiguous sentences.
- Semantic similarity of disambiguating verbs enhanced accuracy, independent of ambiguity.
- No interaction was found between cue diagnosticity and ambiguity on speed or accuracy.
Conclusions:
- Reanalysis during syntactic ambiguity resolution genuinely increases processing time.
- Language processing relies on cue-driven retrieval operations, with diagnostic cues facilitating interpretation regardless of parsing difficulty.
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