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Updated: Aug 5, 2026
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An Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Ageing on Sentence Processing
Published on: October 25, 2019
Processing at Phrase Boundaries During Self-Paced Reading
Jenna Hooper1, Julia Dengler1,2, David Basilico3
1Department of Neurosurgery, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology
|July 29, 2026
Summary
Sentence processing involves building structure and meaning incrementally. Self-paced reading shows processing costs are linked to completing syntactic phrases, especially in complex sentences, and interact with semantic meaning.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Psycholinguistics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Sentence comprehension involves incremental syntactic and semantic processing.
- Previous research identified neural events at phrase boundaries during comprehension.
- Behavioral correlates of these processes require further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the behavioral impact of syntactic phrase boundaries and semantic congruence on sentence processing.
- To examine how sentence structure influences reading times and comprehension accuracy.
- To explore the interaction between syntactic and semantic processing during online language comprehension.
Main Methods:
- Utilized self-paced reading to measure word-by-word reading times.
- Analyzed reading times relative to syntactic phrase boundaries and node-closing operations.
- Assessed comprehension accuracy through a subsequent task.
- Compared processing of object-relative, subject-relative, and canonical control sentences.
Main Results:
- Object-relative sentences showed the greatest processing difficulty (increased reading times, decreased accuracy).
- Reading times peaked at phrase boundaries, correlating with constituent completion.
- Processing costs increased with the number of syntactic constituents completed.
- Semantic congruence effects were largest in object-relative sentences, indicating interaction during high-demand processing.
Conclusions:
- Self-paced reading is sensitive to incremental syntactic constituent completion.
- Processing costs are tied to phrase completion, not just lexical categories.
- Syntactic and semantic processing interact dynamically during sentence comprehension, particularly in complex structures.
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