Parsing for Position

Experimental Psychology
David J LobinaJosep Demestre

Abstract

Monitoring tasks have long been employed in psycholinguistics, and the end-of-clause effect is possibly the better-known result of using this technique in the study of parsing. Recent results with the tone-monitoring task suggest that tone position modulates cognitive load, as reflected in reaction times (RTs): the earlier the tone appears in a sentence, the longer the RTs. In this study, we show that verb position is also an important factor. In particular, changing the time/location at which verb-noun(s) dependencies are computed during the processing of a sentence has a clear effect on cognitive load and, as a result, on the resources that can be devoted to monitoring and responding to a tone. This study is based on two pieces of evidence. We first report the acceptability ratings of six word orders in Spanish and then present monitoring data with three of these different word orders. Our results suggest that RTs tend to be longer if the verb is yet to be processed, pointing to the centrality of a sentence's main verb in parsing in general.

References

Jan 1, 1975·Journal of Psycholinguistic Research·T G Bever, R R Hurtig
Aug 1, 1969·The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology·K Abrams, T G Bever
May 2, 2003·Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers : a Journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc·Kenneth I Forster, Jonathan C Forster
Mar 8, 2013·Behavior Research Methods·Andrew DuchonManuel Carreiras
Apr 10, 2013·Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition·David A BalotaMelvin J Yap
Jan 10, 2014·Journal of Memory and Language·Dale J BarrHarry J Tily
Jul 15, 2017·Behavior Research Methods·David J LobinaJosé E García-Albea
May 10, 2019·Wellcome Open Research·Micah AllenRogier A Kievit

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