Abstract
Listeners heard narrative stories in segments 20-60 sec long, and wrote their immediate recall for the most recent speech in each segment. Segments ended in four ways: there was a main clause alone, a subordinate clause alone, a main clause preceding a subordinate clause, or a subordinate clause preceding a main clause. Only these final sentences were well recalled. Of these, single-clause sentences were recalled best and two-clause sentences with main-subordinate clause order were recalled worst. An interaction obtained between clause position and function suggests that processing may be delayed when sentences fall to begin with main clauses.
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Based on a paper presented at the 79th Meeting of the Acoustica1 Society of America, Atlantic City, N.J., April 1970. This research was supported in Part by Grant DAHC 15 to the Rockefeller University trom the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The authors are grateful to George A. Miller and David B. Pisoni for contributing suggestions and criticism, Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert J. Jarvella, Department of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106.
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Jarvella, R.J., Herman, S.J. Clause structure of sentences and speech processing. Perception & Psychophysics 11, 381–384 (1972). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206272
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206272