What Memory-Load Interference Tasks Tell Us about Spoken Relative Clause Processing.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Science
• Psycholinguistics
• Neuroscience

Background:

• The relationship between working memory (WM) and language processing is a key area in cognitive research.
• Previous studies often rely on English relative clauses (RCs) to demonstrate processing asymmetry, but findings for languages like Chinese are conflicting.

Purpose of the Study:

• This study investigates the role of WM in Chinese RC processing, specifically examining subject-extracted RCs (SRC) and object-extracted RCs (ORC).
• The research aims to address the gap in understanding RC processing asymmetry in languages with potentially different structures.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments utilized a self-paced listening paradigm.
• Concurrent digit-load and lexical-decision interference tasks were employed to manipulate working memory load.
• The study focused on analyzing listening times and post-sentence comprehension for SRCs and ORCs.

Main Results:

• Listening times did not reveal significant disparities between SRC and ORC processing.
• Neither SRC nor ORC processing was differentially affected by syntactic complexity under interference conditions.
• Post-sentence comprehension showed greater impairment for SRCs compared to ORCs.

Conclusions:

• Working memory load did not differentially impact the resources used for Chinese RC processing.
• The findings suggest a dynamic, fluctuating pattern in Chinese RC processing rather than a consistent asymmetry.
• The study argues against the existence of RC processing asymmetry in Chinese language.