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The Concomitant Effects of Phrase Length and Informational Content in Sentence Comprehension

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Abstract

Recent evidence suggests that phrase length plays a crucial role in modification ambiguities. Using a self-paced reading task, we extended these results by examining the additional pragmatic effects that length manipulations may exert. The results demonstrate that length not only modulates modification preferences directly, but that it also necessarily changes the informational content of a sentence, which itself affects modification preferences. Our findings suggest that the same length manipulation affects multiple sources of constraints, both structural and pragmatic, which can each exert differing effects on processing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hedco Neurosciences Building, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, 90089-2520

    Robert Thornton

  2. Hedco Neurosciences Building, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, 90089-2520

    Maryellen C. MacDonald

  3. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1910

    Jennifer E. Arnold

Authors
  1. Robert Thornton
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  2. Maryellen C. MacDonald
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  3. Jennifer E. Arnold
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Thornton, R., MacDonald, M.C. & Arnold, J.E. The Concomitant Effects of Phrase Length and Informational Content in Sentence Comprehension. J Psycholinguist Res 29, 195–203 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005197012421

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005197012421

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