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Abstract:
Swinney [1] and Tanenhaus et al. [2] reported a
temporal dissociation of top-down and bottom-up information in word
recognition. Both found syntactic frames do not immediately
prevent homophone activation: at offset, "flower" and "stood" are
primed by either "they all bought a rose" or "they all rose." 200
ms later, only the consistent homophone is primed [2]. This
suggests word recognition operates initially on the bottom-up
signal, and syntactic constraints are integrated later.
This is inconsistent with recent work indicating
that (even non-linguistic) constraints are integrated immediately
in language processing [3, 4]. However, verb- and
noun-biased frames provide weak constraints; expecting one of
thousands of nouns rather than one of thousands of verbs doesn't
narrow interpretation much. Shillcock and Bard [5] tested
this hypothesis with homophones of closed-class words ("wood,"
"would") and found immediate integration (i.e., a spoken context
predicting the closed class form, "would," never primes
"timber"). A related perspective suggested by recent
modeling work on frequency effects [6] is that late detection of
an influence may reflect graded integration rather than a second
stage of processing. In the current experiments, we
examined whether syntactic biases based on strong pragmatic
context could constrain word recognition.
Adjective use depends on the set of possible
referents. Suppose someone wants a red bowl from a set of
objects. If there is also a blue bowl, a descriptive NP is
required (e.g., "hand me the red bowl"). If there is only
one bowl, using the adjective approaches infelicity.
An artificial lexicon was used so that overlap,
length and frequency could be precisely controlled.
Participants learned 9 nouns (referring to shapes) and 9
adjectives (textures). Each artificial word had competitors
in the same form class (e.g., noun-noun) and in the other form
class (noun-adjective). We constructed contexts in which a
descriptive NP (adjective-noun) was required for unambiguous
reference (two exemplars of two types, with different textures)
or infelicitous (four types).
After a learning phase, we tested whether
phonologically overlapping adjectives and nouns competed when the
context favored one form class. On each trial, participants
were instructed to touch one of the objects. Adjective use
conformed to visual constraints. We only found competition
between items from the form class consistent with the context,
suggesting immediate integration of top-down information.
This supports the hypothesis that top-down information is
available immediately in language processing, but detecting
evidence of top-down integration early depends on the strength of
the constraint.
References
[1] Swinney, D. A. (1979). Lexical access
during sentence comprehension: (Re)consideration of context
effects. J. Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18,
645-659.
[2] Tanenhaus, M. K., Leiman, J. M. &
Seidenberg, M. S. (1979). Evidence for multiple stages in
the processing of ambiguous words in syntactic contexts. J.
Verbal Learning & Behavior, 18, 427-440.
[3] Sedivy, J. C., Tanenhaus, M. K., Chambers, C.
G., & Carlson, G. N. (1999). Achieving incremental
interpretation through contextual representation.
Cognition, 71, 109-147.
[4] Tanenhaus, M. K., Spivey-Knowlton, M.,
Eberhard, K., & Sedivy, J. (1995). Integration of
visual and linguistic information in spoken language
comprehension. Science, 268, 1632-1634.
[5] Shillcock, R. C. & Bard, E. G.
(1993). Modularity and the processing of closed-class
words. In G.T.M. Altmann & R.C. Shillcock (Eds.),
Cognitive Models of Speech Processing, 163-185.
[6] Dahan, D., Magnuson, J. S., & Tanenhaus,
M. K. (2001). Time course of frequency effects in
spoken-word recognition: Evidence from eye movements. Cognitive
Psychology, 42, 317-367.
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