Temporal References and Temporal Relations in Sentence Comprehension.

The author investigated the interpretation of temporal references during comprehension of sentences containing a main and subordinate clause. Experiments 1 and 2 examined state and event subordinate clauses, respectively, and showed that subordinate temporal references overlapping with or close to the time of the main clause event were read faster than nonoverlapping distant references. Experiment 3 examined temporal references in nonsubordinate main clauses and confirmed that temporal relations between main and subordinate clauses were established on-line in the previous experiments. Experiment 4 independently manipulated temporal overlap and distance and suggested that event and state clauses are processed according to distinct temporal parameters. The results are explained by the contingency relations that events and states establish with other discourse events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integration of topic and subordinate information during reading.

Four experiments examined how readers integrate subordinate information with relevant context as they read. Ss read texts a sentence at a time with occasional interruptions lasting 30 sec. Following a distractor task, they resumed reading after being reminded of the topic sentence of the last paragraph they read (topic cue condition), being reminded of the last sentence they had read (local cue condition), or receiving no reminder of what they had been reading (no cue condition). Reading times on the 1st sentence following interruption were faster in the topic and local cue conditions than in the no cue condition (1) when the topic and local cues supplied missing referents for the target sentences, (2) when the target sentences were written to be understood as independent statements, and (3) whether the target sentences were embedded in short or long texts. Results are interpreted as demonstrating that readers integrate subordinate information with relevant topics, as well as with the immediate local context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movements of young and older adults during reading.

The eye movements of young and older adults were tracked as they read sentences varying in syntactic complexity. In Experiment 1, cleft object and object relative clause sentences were more difficult to process than cleft subject and subject relative clause sentences; however, older adults made many more regressions, resulting in increased regression path fixation times and total fixation times, than young adults while processing cleft object and object relative clause sentences. In Experiment 2, older adults experienced more difficulty than young adults while reading cleft and relative clause sentences with temporary syntactic ambiguities created by deleting the that complementizers. Regression analyses indicated that readers with smaller working memories need more regressions and longer fixation times to process cleft object and object relative clause sentences. These results suggest that age-associated declines in working memory do affect syntactic processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Improving comprehensibility by shortening sentences.

As measured by cloz tests, technical passages divided into short sentences were significantly more comprehensible than their long sentence counterparts, but the magnitude of the improvement was small--about 6%. A sentence-by-sentence comparison suggested these hypotheses for more detailed study (a) It may improve comprehensibility if "clause fragments" such as subordinate clauses are raised to full sentences (b) It may improve comprehensibly to divide sentences joined by conjunctions (but, for, because, etc.) that signal that the 1st clause is qualified by the 2nd one (c) It will not improve comprehensibility to divide a sentence joined by "and" into 2 sentences (d) Shortening clauses may be more effective than merely emphasizing their boundaries by punctuating them as separate sentences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Algorithmic and heuristic strategies in comprehension of complement clauses by patients with Parkinson's disease

Language ability in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) and normal control subjects (NC) matched on age, sex, education and socioeconomic status (SES) was investigated. The two groups of subjects were tested on eight sentence types in Greek in the form of main and complement clause with eight matrix verbs. These matrix verbs were ask (ask information), promise (commissive meaning), tell1 (order, command) and tell2 (give information) in sentences with no semantic constraints, and confess, sell, trust and scold in sentences with semantic constraints (implicit causality). The results show that language ability, despite relative preservation is significantly impaired in PD patients as compared to that of NC. More specifically, syntax with semantic constraints was the most effective independent variable to classify PD patients and NC subjects into two distinct groups according to a Logistic Regression Analysis. To restrict the algorithmic process in sentence comprehension, PD patients seem to make use of the minimal distance principle (MDP) and the "experiencer constraint" heuristic strategies. Possible similarities in language behavior between PD patients and aphasics, in general, are suggested.     

Use of elaborative interrogation to help students acquire information consistent with prior knowledge and information inconsistent with prior knowledge.

32 factual statements were processed by 140 6th and 7th graders. Half of the statements were consistent with the Ss' prior knowledge, whereas the remaining facts were inconsistent with the Ss' prior knowledge. Half of the Ss were instructed to read the sentences for understanding (reading controls). The remaining Ss were instructed to use their prior knowledge to answer why each fact was true (elaborative interrogation). Two tests of recall (free and cued) and 2 tests of recognition (immediate and 14-day) followed. In Exp 2, Ss also completed 75-day and 180-day recognition tasks. Across all memory measures, elaborative-interrogation Ss performed significantly better than did reading controls. In general, the quality of the elaborative-interrogation study responses did not affect learning. All Ss recognized more prior-knowledge-consistent facts than prior-knowledge-inconsistent facts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Text variations at the level of the individual sentence and the comprehension of simple expository paragraphs.

In Exps I, II, V, and VI, 274 4th–6th graders chose titles and wrote summary sentences for simple expository paragraphs. Ss did not utilize the information in topic sentences as effectively as did 116 undergraduates (Exps II and IV), but their performance improved when the topic sentence was highlighted. All Ss were better able to detect sentences that conformed neither to the paragraph's general nor specific topic than sentences conforming only to the general topic. The canonical topic comment form made deviant sentences more difficult to detect, as did the introduction of collocational ties, indicating that text variations at the level of individual sentences affected the evaluation of information that did not conform to the overall paragraph structure. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prosodic influences on the resolution of temporary ambiguity during on-line sentence processing

We present three experiments designed to investigate the role of prosody during sentence processing. The first investigated the question of whether an utterance's prosodic contour influences its comprehension on-line. We spliced the beginning and end portions of direct object and embedded clause sentences and observed the consequent effects on comprehension using a dual-task procedure to measure processing load. Our second experiment sought to determine whether the constituent structure of these sentences could be reliably predicted using prosodic information. We found that the duration and F0 contour associated with the main-clause verb and the following NP reliably distinguished between the direct object and embedded clause constructions. In the final experiment, we manipulated the duration of the main-clause verb and found that subjects used this information to guide their initial parse during on-line sentence comprehension. The need for a model of sentence processing that addresses the use of prosodic information is discussed.     

Comparison of the stylistic complexity of the language of counselor and client across three theoretical orientations.

Using data generated from a computer-assisted language analysis system, and excerpts from 2 different time periods in each interview from the film series Three Approaches to Psychotherapy, the stylistic complexity of the language of counselor and client was compared. The analysis indicated that the counselors were significantly different from one another on 4 dependent measures of stylistic complexity: number of sentences, average sentence length, average block length, and average clause depth. The differences were commensurate with expectations derived from each theoretical approach. The client's stylistic complexity also differed significantly on the 4 measures across the 3 interviews. Moreover, by comparing the data within each interview from Time 1 and Time 2, evidence for concerted action was found. Results support and raise questions about the potency of interpersonal influence in counseling, the effect of the theoretical approach on the language by which counseling is conducted, and speculations about how counselor and client establish the ground rules for treatment. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contextual insensitivity in schizophrenic language processing: Evidence from lexical ambiguity.

The authors investigated whether contextual failures in schizophrenia are due to deficits in the detection of context or the inhibition of contextually irrelevant information. Eighteen schizophrenia patients and 24 nonpsychiatric controls were tested via a cross-modal semantic priming task. Participants heard sentences containing homonyms and made lexical decisions about visual targets related to the homonyms' dominant or subordinate meanings. When sentences moderately biased subordinate meanings (e.g., the animal enclosure meaning of pen), schizophrenia patients showed priming of dominant targets (e.g., paper) and subordinate targets (e.g., pig). In contrast, controls showed priming only of subordininate targets. When contexts strongly biased subordinate meanings, both groups showed priming only of subordinate targets. The results suggest that inhibitory deficits rather than context detection deficits underlie contextual failures in schizophrenia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sources of sentence constraint on lexical ambiguity resolution

Results from a series of naming experiments demonstrated that major lexical categories of simple sentences can provide sources of constraint on the interpretation of ambiguous words (homonyms). Manipulation of verb (Experiment 1) or subject noun (Experiment 2) specificity produced contexts that were empirically rated as being strongly biased or ambiguous. Priming was demonstrated for target words related to both senses of a homonym following ambiguous sentences, but only contextually appropriate target words were primed following strongly biased dominant or subordinate sentences. Experiment 3 showed an increase in the magnitude of priming when multiple constraints on activation converged. Experiments 4 and 5 eliminated combinatorial intralexical priming as an alternative explanation. Instead, it was demonstrated that each constraint was influential only insofar as it contributed to the overall semantic representation of the sentence. When the multiple sources of constraint were retained but the sentence-level representation was changed (Experiment 4) or eliminated (Experiment 5), the results of Experiments 1, 2, and 3 and were not replicated. Experiment 6 examined the issue of homonym exposure duration by using an 80-msec stimulus onset asynchrony. The results replicated the previous experiments. The overall evidence indicates that a sentence context can be made strongly and immediately constraining by the inclusion of specific fillers for salient lexical categories. The results are discussed within a constraint-based, context-sensitive model of lexical ambiguity resolution.     

Effects of explicitness, clause order, and reversibility on children's comprehension of causal relationships.

Three experiments investigated possible age- and ability-related differences in the effects of explicitness, reversibility, and clause order on children's comprehension of causal relationships. Ss were 80 3rd graders, 156 5th graders, and 156 8th graders. At each grade level, Ss of all ability levels read passages containing reversible and irreversible relationships in 1 of 4 experimental formats: explicit with normal clause order, explicit with reversed clause order, implicit with normal clause order, and implicit with reversed clause order. Each passage was followed by a set of prompted-recall questions designed to measure comprehension of the causal relationships. Significant effects for reversibility were found at all 3 grade levels. Significant efects for explicitness were found for the 5th- and 8th-grade samples only. Significant effects for clause order were found for the 3rd- and 5th-grade samples only, with comprehension scores being significantly higher for the groups reading the relationships in the reversed clause order. No significant interactions with ability were found. It is concluded that further research should examine the exact compensatory strategies used by readers when connective comprehension is difficult. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability and change in the complexity of senatorial debate: Testing the cognitive versus rhetorical style hypotheses.

Tested the cognitive vs rhetorical style hypothesis (conservatives have more simplistic rhetorical, not cognitive styles than liberals or moderates) by assessing the integrative complexity of 10 paragraph-sized statements of 81 senators in 5 US Congresses: 3 dominated by liberals and moderates (the 82nd, 94th, and 96th Congresses) and 2 dominated by conservatives (the 83rd and 97th Congresses). Results show that liberals and moderates were more complex than conservatives in the 82nd, 94th, and 96th Congresses but that these differences among ideological groups were much less pronounced in the 83rd and 97th Congresses. The change in pattern was due to sharp declines in the complexity of liberals and, to a lesser extent, moderates in conservative-dominated sessions, not to an increase in the complexity in conservatives. Conservatives displayed more traitlike stability in integrative complexity both within and across Congressional sessions. It is suggested that the integrative complexity of senatorial debate may be a joint product of relatively context-specific styles of political impression management and relatively stable cognitive styles of organizing the political world. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hemispheric differences in context sensitivity during lexical ambiguity resolution

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the influence of contextual constraint on lexical ambiguity resolution in the cerebral hemispheres. A cross-modal priming variant of the divided visual field task was utilized in which subjects heard sentences containing homonyms and made lexical decisions to targets semantically related to dominant and subordinate meanings. Experiment 1 showed priming in both hemispheres of dominant meanings for homonyms embedded in neutral sentence contexts. Experiment 2 showed priming in both hemispheres of dominant and subordinate meanings for homonyms embedded in sentence contexts that biased a central semantic feature of the subordinate meaning. Experiment 3 showed priming of dominant meanings in the left hemisphere (LH), and priming of the subordinate meaning in the right hemisphere (RH) for homonyms embedded in sentences that biased a peripheral semantic feature of the subordinate meaning. These results are consistent with a context-sensitive model of language processing that incorporates differential sensitivity to semantic relationships in the cerebral hemispheres.     

Learner-generated organizational aids: Effects on learning from text.

Compared the effects on learning from text of 4 contexts (topic sentences, headings, related sentences, and unrelated sentences) when they were generated by readers or provided in text. 133 female undergraduates read a 522-word passage based on 15 related topics within a conceptual hierarchy on minerals, and performance under each of the treatments was examined on a free recall test, matching test, and test for knowledge of passage structure. The contexts had differential effects on knowledge of passage structure only when they were generated; readers who generated topic sentences recalled more than all other learners. The provided contexts had no effect on knowledge of passage structure but increased recall of subordinate information over generated contexts. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integrated versus segregated school attendance and immediate recall for standard and nonstandard English.

Examined imitative recall for sentences conforming to the grammatical rules of standard English vs those suggested for nonstandard (black) English. Ss were a total of 87 black and 51 white low- and middle-income children in Grades 3 and 4. Low-income blacks showed better recall than middle-income whites for nonstandard sentences and poorer recall for standard sentences. School integration influenced the performance of low-income blacks: Those who had attended an integrated school were both better on standard and poorer on nonstandard sentences than those who had attended a segregated school. For middle-income Ss, both black and white, there were no evident linguistic effects of integration. Although dialect clearly affected recall, results do not support a conception of black dialect as a separate linguistic system with totally consistent rules. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential expression of empathy in a counseling analogue.

Administered an incomplete sentences measure of conceptual functioning to 40 graduate counseling students. Ss then made written responses to 12 statements by each of 2 clients in a 2 * 2 factorial analysis of variance design (Counselor's Complexity * Analogue Complexity). Results indicate that (a) the more complex counselors expressed a significantly higher level of empathy, and (b) the level of empathy manifested was conditioned by a significant interaction effect between type of counselor and client. The implications for studying the phenomena of differential effects are discussed. (21 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The interpretation of praise and criticism as a function of their social context.

The effect of the interaction of praise and punishment with relative social status (superordinate, subordinate, peer) was studied by exposing college students to events occurring in different social contexts (family, occupation, military). It was assumed that the context would define the frame of reference in which the praise and punishment and social status would be evaluated. The data demonstrated that praise is reacted to more favorably than criticism regardless of context, but that context determines the relative effect of evaluative statements. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GE91D. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)