Abstract
This study investigated the processes underlying parallelism by evaluating the activation of a parallel element (i.e., a verb) throughout and-coordinated sentences. Four points were tested: (1) approximately 1,600ms after the verb in the first conjunct (PP1), (2) immediately following the conjunction (PP2), (3) approximately 1,100ms after the conjunction (PP3), (4) at the end of the second conjunct (PP4). The results revealed no activation at PP1, suggesting activation related to the initial presentation had decayed by this point; however, activation was observed at PP2, PP3, and PP4, suggesting the conjunction elicits reactivation that is sustained throughout the second conjunct. These findings support a specific hypothesis about parallelism, the sustained reactivation hypothesis. This hypothesis claims that, in conjoined structures, a cue that is associated with parallelism elicits the reactivation of material from the first conjunct and that this activation is sustained until integration with the second conjunct can be completed.
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Acknowledgments
During the completion of this study, the first author was supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship as well as a traineeship awarded by NIH to the Center for Research in Language at the University of California, San Diego. This research was also funded by NIH-DC000494.
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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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Callahan, S.M., Shapiro, L.P. & Love, T. Parallelism Effects and Verb Activation: The Sustained Reactivation Hypothesis. J Psycholinguist Res 39, 101–118 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-009-9128-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-009-9128-0