PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

Language Comprehension:The role of memory

Memory and comprehensionThe man that the woman that the child hugged kissed laughed.

Most readers having trouble figuring out who did what to whom (called thematic role assignment).

Easier to assign thematic roles in the two sentences that form it: The man that the woman kissed laughed. The woman that the child hugged kissed the man.

The trouble: Insufficient working memory resources to retain the intermediate

products of computation made building the complex syntactic structure

The Capacity Theory of Comprehension (Just & Carpenter, 1992)

Measuring memory span Daneman and Carpenter (1980??) Technique:

This technique involves presenting sequences of 2 to 6 sentences, each of 13 to 16 words.

The subject has to read the sentences out loud, and attempt to remember the last word of each.

He is then asked to recall as many last words as possible (in any order).

Used to classify readers as high and low span

Insert example of span test

Measuring memory span

Memory and comprehension

Just and Carpenter (1992)

Studied garden path sentences The animacy of the first noun may constrain the

possible interpretation of the sentence

The defendant examined by the lawyer shocked the jury.

The defendant that was examined by the lawyer shocked the jury.

The evidence examined by the lawyer shocked the jury.

The evidence that was examined by the lawyer shocked the jury.

Memory and comprehension

Just & Carpenter (1992)

300

350

400

450

500

550

600

Low-span High-span

msec

animate NPInanimate NP

Just the ambiguous sentences

The defendant examined by the lawyer shocked the jury.

The evidence examined by the

lawyer shocked the jury.

High span readers can use the semantic information

to resolve the ambiguity

Memory and comprehension

King and Just (1991) Verbs which could provide strong pragmatic cues as to which of

the two potential actors in the sentence was the agent : The robber that the fireman rescued stole the jewelry. The robber that the fireman rescued watched the program. The robber that the fireman detested stole the jewelry. The robber that the fireman detested watched the program.

Results High-capacity subjects did not improve Low-capacity subjects did

The opposite of the Just and Carpenter (1992) results.

Memory and comprehension

Garnsey, Pearlmutter, Pirog (2003)

The professor (who was) confronted by the student was not ready for an argument.

The professor (had) confronted the student but was not ready for an argument.

Question:Do readers differ specifically in how quickly they can use

disambiguating words to rule out incorrect alternatives?

Memory and comprehension

- By whether preview of “by” while still fixating on verb likely

Eye fixations were analyzed separately

The professor confronted by the student was not ready to …

Garnsey, Pearlmutter, Pirog (2003)

If last fix was here,trial not used

If last fix was here, trial coded as

Preview Unlikely

If last fix was here, trial coded as

Preview Likely

Memory and comprehension

Readers who score high on the Reading Span test - Make better use of a peripherally visible disambiguating word - To quickly rule out a preferred but incorrect interpretation

Memory and comprehension Read sentence, then decide if it makes sense

Y/N

0100200300400500600700

Mean reading time per

word

Low Medium High

Span Group

Waters & Caplan (19960

Garden pathNon-garden path ANon-garden path B

Memory for sentences

Fillenbaum (1966) Given:

The window is not closed

Tested: The window is closed The window is not open The window is open

<-- surface similar, meaning different<-- surface similar, meaning different<-- surface different, surface different

Meaning gets preserved, surface structure (and syntax) forgotten

Memory for sentences

Sachs (1967, 1974) Heard (read):

He sent a letter about it to Galileo, the great Italian scientist.”

Tested: Same: He sent a letter about it to Galileo, the great Italian scientist. Act/Pass: A letter about it was sent to Galileo, the great Italian scientist. Formal: He sent Galileo, the great Italian scientist, a letter about it. Meaning: Galileo, the great Italian scientist, sent him a letter about it.

Measured accuracy of detecting changes

Memory for sentencesSachs (1967)

5060708090

100

0 80 160

Amount of interpolated material (number of syllables)

Percent correct

semanticchangeactive/passivechangeformal change

identicalsentence

Meaning gets preserved, surface structure (and syntax) forgotten

Just good enough representations

Ferreira and colleagues (Christianson et al 2001) Garden-path sentence

While Anna dressed the baby played in the crib While Anna dressed, the baby played in the crib

100% correct

40% correct

Comprehenders don’t always get all of the meaning right, but get enough to get by

Did the baby play in the crib? Did Anna dress the baby?

Summing up

summary