Abstract
Sentences which have the same description in surface structure may have very different representations in deep structure where the actual grammatical relationships are specified. For two experiments, independent groups of Ss learned lists of sentences which were identical in surface structure but different in deep structure. Error scores for different word-to-word transitions indicated that transitional error probabilities detected different recall patterns reflecting the deep structure differences. Operational tests of this sort should aid the psycholinguist in constructing psychological competence models for language behavior.
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A part of this research was supported by Contract OE 5-10-154 with the United States Office of Education. Portions of the paper were presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, 1968, San Francisco.
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Davidson, R.E. Transitional errors and deep structure differences. Psychon Sci 14, 293–294 (1969). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329131
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329131