Abstract
To investigate the effect of subjective (pause defined) and prescriptive (grammatically defined) phrase markers on subjective grouping, subjects were presented simple declarative sentences in which the subjective and prescriptive phrase markers were either the same or different. In the same condition a 2-sec pause was placed at the major syntactic boundary, while in the different condition the pause was inserted within a constituent. Retrieval latencies for words following probes in the sentence were influenced by grammatical structure and, to a lesser extent, by the pause. The results suggest that, while sentential organization may be influenced by inserting pauses, this influence is highly constrained by the sentence’s grammatical structure.
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Hillinger, M.L., James, C.T., Zell, D.L. et al. The influence of prescriptive and subjective phrase markers on retrieval latencies. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 8, 353–355 (1976). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335164
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335164