Effect on discourse on processing of left- and right-embedded syntactic structures

This study attempted to obtain information on the processing of syntactic structures under conditions of related and unrelated discourse. Eye movements were recorded while 30 competent adult readers silently read right-embedded or left-embedded sentences in conditions of unrelated sentences and in conditions of cohesive paragraphs. Analysis of eye movements for number and duration of forward fixations and regressions showed that left-embedded sentences were significantly more difficult to process than right-embedded sentences. However, context also significantly affected the visual processing of syntactic structures.