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Related Experiment Videos

Recency preference in the human sentence processing mechanism

E Gibson1, N Pearlmutter, E Canseco-Gonzalez

  • 1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, USA. gibson@psyche.mit.edu

Cognition
|April 1, 1996
PubMed
Summary
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Late Closure, a principle of sentence processing, is universally operative but modulated by Predicate Proximity. This research explores relative clause attachment ambiguities in English and Spanish sentence parsing.

Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Computational Linguistics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • The principle of Late Closure suggests sentence processing favors attaching new information to the most recent possible syntactic site.
  • Previous research indicated cross-linguistic differences in relative clause attachment, challenging the universality of Late Closure.
  • Cuetos and Mitchell (1988) found English speakers favor recent attachments, while Spanish speakers prefer less recent ones.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the universality of Late Closure in sentence processing.
  • To explore the role of additional factors in resolving relative clause attachment ambiguities.
  • To propose a revised model of sentence parsing that accounts for cross-linguistic data.

Main Methods:

  • Self-paced reading experiments were conducted with Spanish and English speakers.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Participants read sentences containing relative clause attachment ambiguities with three potential attachment sites.
  • Reading times were analyzed to infer processing preferences and difficulties.

    • Main Results:

    • Evidence suggests Late Closure operates universally in sentence parsing.
    • Attachment preferences are modulated by factors beyond recency, specifically Predicate Proximity.
    • Both English and Spanish speakers' attachment preferences are influenced by the proposed principles.

    Conclusions:

    • Late Closure is a fundamental principle of human sentence processing.
    • Predicate Proximity significantly influences syntactic attachment decisions, especially in ambiguous constructions.
    • A combined model of Late Closure and Predicate Proximity better explains relative clause attachment phenomena across languages.