Pub Date : 2025-05-21DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104643
Kumiko Fukumura
Models of human sentence production often propose a clear distinction between syntactic and semantic processes. We examined this assumption by investigating the interaction between animacy and thematic roles in active–passive structural priming. Study 1 found that the active or passive structure of a preceding sentence (prime) influenced structural choice in a subsequent sentence (target). This priming effect increased when the prime and target sentences shared the same animacy features in their thematic roles, which affected the persistence of the prime subject’s animacy. While verb repetition enhanced active–passive priming, the persistence of the prime subject’s animacy was not affected by lexical repetition. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that repeated animacy features in the thematic roles increase the likelihood of preserving both the thematic role order of the prime (e.g., maintaining the agent-first order in It was the thief that chased the lorry) and its argument structure (e.g., assigning the agent as the subject) in English cleft constructions. In Japanese declarative sentences, where particles indicate the sentential topic, the repeated animacy features strengthened argument structure persistence but not the persistence of thematic role order. These findings suggest that thematic role animacy repetition boosts structural priming by reinforcing thematic emphasis.
人类句子生成模型经常提出句法和语义过程之间的明确区分。我们通过调查主动-被动结构启动中动画和主题角色之间的相互作用来检验这一假设。研究1发现，前句（启动句）的主动或被动结构会影响后句（目标句）的结构选择。当启动句和目标句在主位角色中具有相同的活力特征时，这种启动效应会增强，从而影响启动主语活力的持久性。动词重复可增强主-被动启动效应，但词汇重复对启动主语活力的持久性没有影响。研究2和研究3表明，主位角色的重复活泼特征增加了英语裂隙结构中主位角色顺序（如在It was the thief that chase the lorry中保持主体优先顺序）和主位结构（如指定主体为主语）的可能性。在日语陈述句中，小品句表示句子的主题，重复的动画表现为论点结构的持久性增强，而不是主位角色顺序的持久性。这些发现表明，主题角色动画重复通过强化主题强调来促进结构启动。
{"title":"The interplay of animacy and thematic role in structural persistence","authors":"Kumiko Fukumura","doi":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104643","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104643","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Models of human sentence production often propose a clear distinction between syntactic and semantic processes. We examined this assumption by investigating the interaction between animacy and thematic roles in active–passive structural priming. Study 1 found that the active or passive structure of a preceding sentence (<em>prime</em>) influenced structural choice in a subsequent sentence (<em>target</em>). This priming effect increased when the prime and target sentences shared the same animacy features in their thematic roles, which affected the persistence of the prime subject’s animacy. While verb repetition enhanced active–passive priming, the persistence of the prime subject’s animacy was not affected by lexical repetition. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that repeated animacy features in the thematic roles increase the likelihood of preserving both the thematic role order of the prime (e.g., maintaining the agent-first order in <em>It was the thief that chased the lorry</em>) and its argument structure (e.g., assigning the agent as the subject) in English cleft constructions. In Japanese declarative sentences, where particles indicate the sentential topic, the repeated animacy features strengthened argument structure persistence but not the persistence of thematic role order. These findings suggest that thematic role animacy repetition boosts structural priming by reinforcing thematic emphasis.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16493,"journal":{"name":"Journal of memory and language","volume":"144 ","pages":"Article 104643"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144108075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-17DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104648
Yong Hoon Chung, Kaira K. Shlipak, Viola S. Störmer
Previous research has shown that individual differences in visual working memory performance strongly correlate with measures of fluid intelligence. In these studies, visual working memory was assessed using simple feature stimuli, such as oriented lines or colored squares, as traditionally done. However, recent studies have shown that working memory performance is higher for meaningful stimuli (i.e., real-world objects) relative to simple features. How does working memory capacity for real-world objects relate to fluid intelligence? To test this, participants (103 young adults) completed different visual working memory tasks that used images of real-world objects or simple colored circles as well as fluid and crystallized intelligence tests. The results showed reliable correlations between all working memory tasks and fluid intelligence scores, and no significant differences between these correlations across stimulus types. Interestingly, fluid intelligence scores were correlated with the difference in working memory performance between real-world objects and colored circles, suggesting that the increase in working memory capacity for meaningful stimuli relates to fluid intelligence abilities. Working memory performance was not reliably correlated with crystallized intelligence in any of the tasks. Collectively, these findings suggest that maintaining real-world objects and colored circles largely rely on shared cognitive processes that may, in part, underlie individual differences in fluid intelligence.
{"title":"Fluid intelligence correlates with working memory capacity for both real-world objects and simple-feature stimuli","authors":"Yong Hoon Chung, Kaira K. Shlipak, Viola S. Störmer","doi":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104648","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104648","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Previous research has shown that individual differences in visual working memory performance strongly correlate with measures of fluid intelligence. In these studies, visual working memory was assessed using simple feature stimuli, such as oriented lines or colored squares, as traditionally done. However, recent studies have shown that working memory performance is higher for meaningful stimuli (i.e., real-world objects) relative to simple features. How does working memory capacity for real-world objects relate to fluid intelligence? To test this, participants (103 young adults) completed different visual working memory tasks that used images of real-world objects or simple colored circles as well as fluid and crystallized intelligence tests. The results showed reliable correlations between all working memory tasks and fluid intelligence scores, and no significant differences between these correlations across stimulus types. Interestingly, fluid intelligence scores were correlated with the difference in working memory performance between real-world objects and colored circles, suggesting that the increase in working memory capacity for meaningful stimuli relates to fluid intelligence abilities. Working memory performance was not reliably correlated with crystallized intelligence in any of the tasks. Collectively, these findings suggest that maintaining real-world objects and colored circles largely rely on shared cognitive processes that may, in part, underlie individual differences in fluid intelligence.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16493,"journal":{"name":"Journal of memory and language","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 104648"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144070420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-14DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104645
Byung-Doh Oh , William Schuler
Recent psycholinguistic modeling work using surprisal from Transformer-based language models has reported separable effects of frequency and predictability on real-time processing difficulty. However, it has also been shown that as Transformer-based language models become larger and are trained on more data, they are able to predict low-frequency words more accurately, which has a deleterious effect on fit to reading times. This article examines the impact of this property of language models on the dissociability of frequency effects and predictability effects in naturalistic reading. Regression results show robust positive effects of language model size and training data amount on the ability of word frequency to explain variance in held-out reading times as the contribution due to surprisal declines, which suggests a strong compensatory relationship between frequency and language model surprisal. Additionally, an analysis of the learning trajectories of low-frequency tokens reveals that the influence of model size is strongest on the prediction of tokens that are not part of a bigram sequence observed earlier in the context that models can readily copy, which suggests that limitations in model size create pressures toward learning more general associations. Taken together, these results suggest that the observed frequency effects may be due to imperfect estimates of predictability, and may disappear entirely as better-fitting language models are discovered. This further highlights the importance of exploring additional language models as models of human sentence processing.
{"title":"Dissociable frequency effects attenuate as large language model surprisal predictors improve","authors":"Byung-Doh Oh , William Schuler","doi":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104645","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104645","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent psycholinguistic modeling work using surprisal from Transformer-based language models has reported separable effects of frequency and predictability on real-time processing difficulty. However, it has also been shown that as Transformer-based language models become larger and are trained on more data, they are able to predict low-frequency words more accurately, which has a deleterious effect on fit to reading times. This article examines the impact of this property of language models on the dissociability of frequency effects and predictability effects in naturalistic reading. Regression results show robust positive effects of language model size and training data amount on the ability of word frequency to explain variance in held-out reading times as the contribution due to surprisal declines, which suggests a strong compensatory relationship between frequency and language model surprisal. Additionally, an analysis of the learning trajectories of low-frequency tokens reveals that the influence of model size is strongest on the prediction of tokens that are not part of a bigram sequence observed earlier in the context that models can readily copy, which suggests that limitations in model size create pressures toward learning more general associations. Taken together, these results suggest that the observed frequency effects may be due to imperfect estimates of predictability, and may disappear entirely as better-fitting language models are discovered. This further highlights the importance of exploring additional language models as models of human sentence processing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16493,"journal":{"name":"Journal of memory and language","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 104645"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143943651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-05DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104642
Kevin D. Roon , D.H. Whalen
We tested the hypothesis that phonological planning takes longer when two possible utterances differ in incompatible, inherently mutually exclusive values of a single feature (e.g., voiced vs. unvoiced, a dental vs. alveolar tongue-tip constriction) compared to when two possible utterances differ in values for features that are not inherently mutually exclusive (e.g., a tongue-tip constriction vs. a labial constriction). Verbal acoustic latencies from a cue-response task were analyzed. When the mutually exclusive feature value was voicing in plosive-intial utterances, latencies were in fact shorter than when articulator was unknown, contra expectation. When the mutually exclusive feature value was voicing in fricative-intial utterances, there was no reliable difference in latencies. When the mutually exclusive feature value was tongue-tip constriction location, latency differences were as expected, albeit marginally. These results suggest that the notion of inherently mutually exclusive feature values requires further refinement, and may depend on specific aspects of phonological representation.
{"title":"Planning competing values of a single phonological feature vs. planning values for multiple features","authors":"Kevin D. Roon , D.H. Whalen","doi":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104642","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104642","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We tested the hypothesis that phonological planning takes longer when two possible utterances differ in incompatible, inherently mutually exclusive values of a single feature (e.g., voiced vs. unvoiced, a dental vs. alveolar tongue-tip constriction) compared to when two possible utterances differ in values for features that are not inherently mutually exclusive (e.g., a tongue-tip constriction vs. a labial constriction). Verbal acoustic latencies from a cue-response task were analyzed. When the mutually exclusive feature value was voicing in plosive-intial utterances, latencies were in fact shorter than when articulator was unknown, contra expectation. When the mutually exclusive feature value was voicing in fricative-intial utterances, there was no reliable difference in latencies. When the mutually exclusive feature value was tongue-tip constriction location, latency differences were as expected, albeit marginally. These results suggest that the notion of inherently mutually exclusive feature values requires further refinement, and may depend on specific aspects of phonological representation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16493,"journal":{"name":"Journal of memory and language","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 104642"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143906278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-05DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104646
Yasushi Hino , Debra Jared , Stephen J. Lupker
Recent research (e.g., Marelli & Amenta, 2018; Siegelman, Rueckl, Lo, Kearns, Morris & Compton, 2022) has demonstrated a significant orthographic-semantic (O-S) consistency effect on lexical decision performance. Specifically, lexical decision latencies were faster for words with a consistent O-S relationship than for words that do not have a consistent O-S relationship, with consistency being defined in terms of the semantics of those words’ “orthographic neighbors”. Interestingly, however, the words assumed to be orthographic neighbors were different across the studies and, therefore, different factors may have been at work in the two situations. In order to more closely examine the origin of O-S consistency effects in lexical decision tasks, we first attempted to replicate both of those results. Then, we examined O-S consistency effects based on addition (e.g., cats-CAT, pant-PAN), substitution (e.g., cot-CAT, pin-PAN) and deletion (seat-SAT, road-ROD) neighbors separately for mono-morphemic English words in both the datasets used in the previous studies and, based on the former two neighbor types, in a lexical decision experiment. Throughout our data analyses, we observed that addition neighbors play an important role in producing an O-S consistency effect in lexical decision performance. In contrast, we failed to observe a significant O-S consistency effect when consistencies were computed based only on the substitution (or deletion) neighbors. Because addition neighbors involve many morphologically-related neighbors, we further examined the roles that morphologically-related and unrelated neighbors play in producing the O-S consistency effect. Those analyses revealed that the O-S consistency effect for addition neighbors is largely produced by the combination of a processing advantage when a word has many morphologically-related neighbors and a processing disadvantage when a word has many morphologically-unrelated neighbors. More broadly, this research demonstrates that readers pick up on the statistical relationships between spelling and meaning.
{"title":"Orthographic-Semantic consistency effects in lexical decision: What types of neighbors are responsible for the Effects?","authors":"Yasushi Hino , Debra Jared , Stephen J. Lupker","doi":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104646","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104646","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent research (e.g., Marelli & Amenta, 2018; Siegelman, Rueckl, Lo, Kearns, Morris & Compton, 2022) has demonstrated a significant orthographic-semantic (O-S) consistency effect on lexical decision performance. Specifically, lexical decision latencies were faster for words with a consistent O-S relationship than for words that do not have a consistent O-S relationship, with consistency being defined in terms of the semantics of those words’ “orthographic neighbors”. Interestingly, however, the words assumed to be orthographic neighbors were different across the studies and, therefore, different factors may have been at work in the two situations. In order to more closely examine the origin of O-S consistency effects in lexical decision tasks, we first attempted to replicate both of those results. Then, we examined O-S consistency effects based on addition (e.g., cats-CAT, pant-PAN), substitution (e.g., cot-CAT, pin-PAN) and deletion (seat-SAT, road-ROD) neighbors separately for mono-morphemic English words in both the datasets used in the previous studies and, based on the former two neighbor types, in a lexical decision experiment. Throughout our data analyses, we observed that addition neighbors play an important role in producing an O-S consistency effect in lexical decision performance. In contrast, we failed to observe a significant O-S consistency effect when consistencies were computed based only on the substitution (or deletion) neighbors. Because addition neighbors involve many morphologically-related neighbors, we further examined the roles that morphologically-related and unrelated neighbors play in producing the O-S consistency effect. Those analyses revealed that the O-S consistency effect for addition neighbors is largely produced by the combination of a processing advantage when a word has many morphologically-related neighbors and a processing disadvantage when a word has many morphologically-unrelated neighbors. More broadly, this research demonstrates that readers pick up on the statistical relationships between spelling and meaning.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16493,"journal":{"name":"Journal of memory and language","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 104646"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143906279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-02DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104647
Lauren K. Salig , Jorge R. Valdés Kroff , L. Robert Slevc , Jared M. Novick
In conversation with each other, bilinguals sometimes code-switch between their shared languages. While psycholinguistic research often highlights the challenges of processing code-switches compared to single-language utterances, bilinguals seem to navigate code-switching with ease. Alongside empirical evidence that code-switching does not always disrupt comprehension in natural contexts, this raises intriguing questions about the potential benefits of code-switching. We propose that code-switching enhances bilingual listeners’ attention to the speech signal, improving the encoding and memory of linguistic messages near the switch. In Experiment 1, Spanish-English bilinguals listened to code-switched and single-language stories, occasionally reported their attention levels, and later answered comprehension questions. They reported greater attention to and demonstrated increased memory for code-switched content. Experiment 2 tested whether this attentional effect was simply due to the saliency of language changes by having English-speaking monolinguals complete the same task. Although monolinguals showed better memory when reporting higher attention, they did not show increased attention following code-switches. These findings suggest that bilinguals’ experience with the communicative contexts in which code-switches typically occur enables them to focus their attention on speech content during a code-switch, aiding in their collection and retention of that content over time.
{"title":"Hearing a code-switch increases bilinguals’ attention to and memory for information","authors":"Lauren K. Salig , Jorge R. Valdés Kroff , L. Robert Slevc , Jared M. Novick","doi":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104647","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104647","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In conversation with each other, bilinguals sometimes code-switch between their shared languages. While psycholinguistic research often highlights the challenges of processing code-switches compared to single-language utterances, bilinguals seem to navigate code-switching with ease. Alongside empirical evidence that code-switching does not always disrupt comprehension in natural contexts, this raises intriguing questions about the potential benefits of code-switching. We propose that code-switching enhances bilingual listeners’ attention to the speech signal, improving the encoding and memory of linguistic messages near the switch. In Experiment 1, Spanish-English bilinguals listened to code-switched and single-language stories, occasionally reported their attention levels, and later answered comprehension questions. They reported greater attention to and demonstrated increased memory for code-switched content. Experiment 2 tested whether this attentional effect was simply due to the saliency of language changes by having English-speaking monolinguals complete the same task. Although monolinguals showed better memory when reporting higher attention, they did not show increased attention following code-switches. These findings suggest that bilinguals’ experience with the communicative contexts in which code-switches typically occur enables them to focus their attention on speech content during a code-switch, aiding in their collection and retention of that content over time.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16493,"journal":{"name":"Journal of memory and language","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 104647"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143898622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-30DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104649
Brett R. Myers , Cassandra L. Jacobs , Andrés Buxó-Lugo , Duane G. Watson
Speakers often lengthen the duration of a word when it shares initial phonological segments with a previously uttered word (e.g., candy and candle). One explanation for this is that words with initial similarity affect phonological encoding during sequence planning, yet it is unclear whether this similarity is phonetic or phonological. We manipulated phonetic differences by using a dialect variant: the pin-pen merger in American English. Participants completed an event description task in three experiments. We manipulated whether the participant’s target vowel ([ɪ] or [ɛ]) either phonetically matched or mismatched the vowel of the prime speaker, depending on the participant’s dialect. In the second experiment, we introduced a control vowel in the prime word ([æ] vs. [ɛ]). Participants in both dialect groups lengthened target words when they shared an initial phoneme, even when the vowel of the overlapping prime word was not shared across dialects. In the third experiment, we replicated this finding in a larger cohort of non-merger participants. All three experiments showed word lengthening despite the phonetic realization of phonemes, suggesting this effect is driven by phonological representations rather than surface-level pronunciations.
{"title":"Tomato-tomahto: Phonological representations vs. surface-level features in speech planning","authors":"Brett R. Myers , Cassandra L. Jacobs , Andrés Buxó-Lugo , Duane G. Watson","doi":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104649","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104649","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Speakers often lengthen the duration of a word when it shares initial phonological segments with a previously uttered word (e.g.,<!--> <em>candy</em> and <em>candle</em>). One explanation for this is that words with initial similarity affect phonological encoding during sequence planning, yet it is unclear whether this similarity is phonetic or phonological. We manipulated phonetic differences by using a dialect variant: the <em>pin-pen</em> merger in American English. Participants completed an event description task in three experiments. We manipulated whether the participant’s target vowel ([ɪ] or [ɛ]) either phonetically matched or mismatched the vowel of the prime speaker, depending on the participant’s dialect. In the second experiment, we introduced a control vowel in the prime word ([æ] vs. [ɛ]). Participants in both dialect groups lengthened target words when they shared an initial phoneme, even when the vowel of the overlapping prime word was not shared across dialects. In the third experiment, we replicated this finding in a larger cohort of non-merger participants. All three experiments showed word lengthening despite the phonetic realization of phonemes, suggesting this effect is driven by phonological representations rather than surface-level pronunciations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16493,"journal":{"name":"Journal of memory and language","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 104649"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143888141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-24DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104637
Tijn Schmitz, Rick Nouwen, Jakub Dotlačil
Syntactically inaccessible distractors can cause an illusion of grammaticality during the resolution of syntactic dependencies. At the discourse level, there is also a notion of accessibility. To what extent is this notion relevant to the processing of dependencies that go beyond the syntactic level? In three eye-tracking experiments, we studied illusion effects during presupposition resolution in short discourses. A sentence in the discourse triggered a presupposition, and a preceding sentence provided two candidate propositions for resolution: a target proposition that was accessible for presupposition resolution, and a distractor proposition that was inaccessible for the presupposition. Orthogonal to the accessibility manipulation, the two propositions could match or mismatch the semantic content of the presupposition. Experiment 1, focusing on the retrieval of gender features, showed an illusion effect by matching, but inaccessible, distractors, comparable to illusion effects in syntactic dependency resolution. In Experiment 2, which required the retrieval of compositional semantic information rather than a single feature, we replicate the finding that discourse-inaccessible information still influences memory retrieval in dependency resolution. In Experiment 3 we compared proactive and retroactive interference and demonstrated that the illusion effect is diminished or possibly even entirely disappears when the distractor is further away from the presupposition. We argue that our findings provide evidence that memory models deployed for syntactic retrieval should be extended to account for retrieval in discourses. This is challenging for most models of retrieval, more so for models that tie memory failures directly to (morpho-)syntactic structure building. We also indicate how a more general model of memory, the cue-based retrieval model, would have to be extended to capture our findings.
{"title":"Memory retrieval in discourse: Illusions of coherence during presupposition resolution","authors":"Tijn Schmitz, Rick Nouwen, Jakub Dotlačil","doi":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104637","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104637","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Syntactically inaccessible distractors can cause an illusion of grammaticality during the resolution of syntactic dependencies. At the discourse level, there is also a notion of accessibility. To what extent is this notion relevant to the processing of dependencies that go beyond the syntactic level? In three eye-tracking experiments, we studied illusion effects during presupposition resolution in short discourses. A sentence in the discourse triggered a presupposition, and a preceding sentence provided two candidate propositions for resolution: a target proposition that was accessible for presupposition resolution, and a distractor proposition that was inaccessible for the presupposition. Orthogonal to the accessibility manipulation, the two propositions could match or mismatch the semantic content of the presupposition. Experiment 1, focusing on the retrieval of gender features, showed an illusion effect by matching, but inaccessible, distractors, comparable to illusion effects in syntactic dependency resolution. In Experiment 2, which required the retrieval of compositional semantic information rather than a single feature, we replicate the finding that discourse-inaccessible information still influences memory retrieval in dependency resolution. In Experiment 3 we compared proactive and retroactive interference and demonstrated that the illusion effect is diminished or possibly even entirely disappears when the distractor is further away from the presupposition. We argue that our findings provide evidence that memory models deployed for syntactic retrieval should be extended to account for retrieval in discourses. This is challenging for most models of retrieval, more so for models that tie memory failures directly to (morpho-)syntactic structure building. We also indicate how a more general model of memory, the cue-based retrieval model, would have to be extended to capture our findings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16493,"journal":{"name":"Journal of memory and language","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 104637"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143868797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-21DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104641
Laoura Ziaka , Dzan Zelihic , Bob McMurray , Keith Baxelbaum , Kristin Simonsen , Athanassios Protopapas
We report two experiments demonstrating that visual word recognition is impeded by the presence of nearby stimuli, especially adjacent words. Reading research has converged on a consensus that skilled readers control their attention to make use of information from adjacent (primarily upcoming) words, increasing reading efficiency. Other lines of research seem to point to potential interference from nearby items, yet this has not been investigated at the critical lexical level. To specifically target lexical activation, here we employ a novel variant of the visual world paradigm with masked (75 ms) flanked visual word targets, contrasting five flanker conditions across two experiments, namely none, repeated symbols, unknown font strings, pseudowords, and words. Analysis of multiple observed variables from 60 and 58 adult Norwegian speakers showed strong interference—compared to no flankers—for all flanker conditions except the repeated symbols. Interference increased with additional levels of possible flanker processing, and was greatest for higher-frequency word targets, consistent with rapid dynamic modulation of attentional breadth. Our findings demonstrate that nearby words interfere with lexical activation of the fixated word and call for a more nuanced approach to the role of preview in fluent reading. We conclude that skilled reading involves a constant complex interplay between the drive toward efficiency, which requires a broad attentional field, and the need to shield processing from interference, which limits attentional breadth.
{"title":"Visual word recognition is impeded by adjacent words","authors":"Laoura Ziaka , Dzan Zelihic , Bob McMurray , Keith Baxelbaum , Kristin Simonsen , Athanassios Protopapas","doi":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104641","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104641","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We report two experiments demonstrating that visual word recognition is impeded by the presence of nearby stimuli, especially adjacent words. Reading research has converged on a consensus that skilled readers control their attention to make use of information from adjacent (primarily upcoming) words, increasing reading efficiency. Other lines of research seem to point to potential interference from nearby items, yet this has not been investigated at the critical lexical level. To specifically target lexical activation, here we employ a novel variant of the visual world paradigm with masked (75 ms) flanked visual word targets, contrasting five flanker conditions across two experiments, namely none, repeated symbols, unknown font strings, pseudowords, and words. Analysis of multiple observed variables from 60 and 58 adult Norwegian speakers showed strong interference—compared to no flankers—for all flanker conditions except the repeated symbols. Interference increased with additional levels of possible flanker processing, and was greatest for higher-frequency word targets, consistent with rapid dynamic modulation of attentional breadth. Our findings demonstrate that nearby words interfere with lexical activation of the fixated word and call for a more nuanced approach to the role of preview in fluent reading. We conclude that skilled reading involves a constant complex interplay between the drive toward efficiency, which requires a broad attentional field, and the need to shield processing from interference, which limits attentional breadth.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16493,"journal":{"name":"Journal of memory and language","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 104641"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143852275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-19DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104644
Julio Santiago , Alessia Beracci , Andrea Flumini , Eva Sanjuan , Marc Ouellet , Pablo Solana
The mental representation of time recruits spatial representations, but is space an essential, inescapable feature of mental time? Supporting a positive answer to this question, recent research has reported that lateral (left–right) space is automatically activated in lexical decision tasks in which the temporal reference of the words is irrelevant for the goals of the task (implicit tasks). Here, using always the same set of Spanish verbs and pseudoverbs marked for past or future tense, we assess the space–time congruency effect in reaction time and mouse trajectories, both in an explicit time judgement task and an implicit lexical decision task. Moreover, we report the first confirmatory (preregistered) study in this field of research using long lateral movements in lexical decision. The congruency effect was always significant in time judgement, but non-significant in lexical decision. Moreover, in reaction time this effect was significantly smaller than a Smallest Effect Size Of Interest (SESOI) of 10 ms, and even smaller than a recently reported 9 ms effect. Therefore, it was considered negligible. We conclude that there is no convincing evidence for an automatic activation of the lateral mental timeline in lexical decision.
{"title":"Can the lateral mental timeline be automatically activated in language comprehension?","authors":"Julio Santiago , Alessia Beracci , Andrea Flumini , Eva Sanjuan , Marc Ouellet , Pablo Solana","doi":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104644","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jml.2025.104644","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The mental representation of time recruits spatial representations, but is space an essential, inescapable feature of mental time? Supporting a positive answer to this question, recent research has reported that lateral (left–right) space is automatically activated in lexical decision tasks in which the temporal reference of the words is irrelevant for the goals of the task (implicit tasks). Here, using always the same set of Spanish verbs and pseudoverbs marked for past or future tense, we assess the space–time congruency effect in reaction time and mouse trajectories, both in an explicit time judgement task and an implicit lexical decision task. Moreover, we report the first confirmatory (preregistered) study in this field of research using long lateral movements in lexical decision. The congruency effect was always significant in time judgement, but non-significant in lexical decision. Moreover, in reaction time this effect was significantly smaller than a Smallest Effect Size Of Interest (SESOI) of 10 ms, and even smaller than a recently reported 9 ms effect. Therefore, it was considered negligible. We conclude that there is no convincing evidence for an automatic activation of the lateral mental timeline in lexical decision.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":16493,"journal":{"name":"Journal of memory and language","volume":"143 ","pages":"Article 104644"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143847351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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