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Interference in short-term memory: the magical number two (or three) in sentence processing
1Department of Computer and Information Science, Ohio State University, Columbus 43210, USA. rick@cis.ohio-state.edu
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
|January 1, 1996
Summary
Syntactic working memory limitations explain sentence processing difficulties. A parsing architecture limiting constituent indexing to two per relation unifies findings from memory research and sentence comprehension.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Cognitive Psychology
- Computational Linguistics
Background:
- Traditional theories of sentence processing difficulty often cite limited short-term memory capacity.
- These theories have largely developed independently of general memory research principles like chunking and interference.
Purpose of the Study:
- To unify sentence processing theories with traditional memory research.
- To propose a model explaining sentence processing phenomena through syntactic working memory interference.
Main Methods:
- Developing a parsing architecture with a strict limitation on constituent indexing.
- Analyzing interference effects within a constrained syntactic working memory framework.
Main Results:
- The proposed model explains various sentence processing phenomena, including embedding difficulty, ambiguity resolution limits, and garden path effects.
- A consistent limitation of two or three items in syntactic working memory aligns with findings in other verbal short-term memory tasks.
Conclusions:
- Sentence processing difficulties, including complex embeddings and structural ambiguities, can be attributed to interference effects in a limited syntactic working memory.
- A unified theory based on sharply limited syntactic working memory provides a parsimonious explanation for a range of core sentence processing phenomena.