Abstract
Two experiments investigated the relation between individual differences in working memory capacity and differences in the efficiency of syntactic processing. In one experiment, readers comprehended sentences containing main-verb/reduced-relative ambiguities that all resolved to the reduced-relative interpretation. High-span (but not low-span) readers processed sentences more slowly when the sentences were biased to the preferred, main-verb interpretation than when they were biased to the reduced-relative interpretation. Moreover, high-span (but not lowspan) readers used information about the plausibility of the different interpretations even though low-span readers appeared to possess the requisite knowledge. In Experiment 2, readers received intensive exposure to sentences with main-verb/reduced-relative ambiguities. Exposure enhanced low-span readers’ use of plausibility information. Moreover, the effect of exposure generalized to sentences that were not included in the training materials.
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The research reported here was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant NICHD 1 R01 HD48914-1A2.
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Long, D.L., Prat, C.S. Individual differences in syntactic ambiguity resolution: Readers vary in their use of plausibility information. Memory & Cognition 36, 375–391 (2008). https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.36.2.375
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.36.2.375