Influence of Connectives on Language Comprehension: Eye tracking Evidence for Incremental Interpretation
Open Access
- 1 August 1997
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A
- Vol. 50 (3) , 481-497
- https://doi.org/10.1080/027249897391982
Abstract
An eye-tracking experiment investigated whether incremental interpretation applies to interclausal relationships. According to Millis and Just's (1994) delayed-integration hypothesis, interclausal relationships are not computed until the end of the second clause, because the processor needs to have two full propositions before integration can occur. We investigated the processing of causal and diagnostic sentences (Sweetser, 1990; Tversky & Kahneman, 1982) that contained the connective because. Previous research (Traxler, Sanford, Aked, & Moxey, 1997) has demonstrated that readers have greater difficulty processing diagnostic sentences than causal sentences. Our results indicated that difficulty processing diagnostic sentences occurred well before the end of the second clause. Thus comprehenders appear to compute interclausal relationships incrementally.Keywords
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