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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 9, 2026

Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks
08:32

Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks

Published on: September 5, 2019

Active dependency formation and ambiguity resolution in real-time sentence processing.

Hiroki Fujita1, Masaya Yoshida2,3

  • 1Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany. hiroki.fujita@uni-potsdam.de.

Memory & Cognition
|May 7, 2026
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Active dependency formation in sentence processing helps resolve ambiguity by reducing revision costs. This effect is stronger with multiple unresolved dependencies, impacting how we understand real-time language comprehension.

Keywords:
Active dependency formationAmbiguity resolutionLanguage comprehensionSentence parsingSentence processing

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Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 9, 2026

Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks
08:32

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Published on: September 5, 2019

Using Eye Movements Recorded in the Visual World Paradigm to Explore the Online Processing of Spoken Language
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Dissociation of the Confounding Influences of Expectancy and Integrative Difficulty Residing in Anomalous Sentences in Event-related Potential Studies
05:22

Dissociation of the Confounding Influences of Expectancy and Integrative Difficulty Residing in Anomalous Sentences in Event-related Potential Studies

Published on: May 9, 2019

Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Cognitive Science
  • Computational Linguistics

Background:

  • Garden-path sentences, like 'Whenever the boys hug Tom smiles happily', present temporary ambiguity.
  • Listeners initially misinterpret 'Tom' as the object of 'hug' before revising to the subject of 'smiles'.
  • The role of active dependency formation in resolving such syntactic ambiguities is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if active dependency formation influences the resolution of late-closure garden-path sentences.
  • To examine the impact of wh-trace and PRO-controller dependencies on ambiguity resolution.
  • To determine how the number of unresolved dependencies affects processing costs.

Main Methods:

  • Three self-paced reading experiments were conducted.
  • Experimental sentences included wh-trace and/or PRO-controller dependencies to bias towards a subject analysis.
  • Reading times were measured to assess processing difficulty and revision costs.

Main Results:

  • Active dependency formation did not entirely prevent the initial object analysis.
  • However, it significantly reduced the revision cost at the disambiguating verb.
  • This reduction in revision cost was greater with multiple unresolved dependencies compared to a single one.

Conclusions:

  • Active dependency formation plays a role in mitigating processing costs associated with syntactic ambiguity.
  • The findings suggest that unresolved dependencies can influence ambiguity resolution strategies.
  • This research contributes to understanding the interplay between dependency formation and real-time sentence processing.