Hostname: page-component-77c78cf97d-5vn5w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-04T07:01:53.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Processing effects in linguistic judgment data: (super-)additivity and reading span scores*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2014

PHILIP HOFMEISTER ,
LAURA STAUM CASASANTO  and
IVAN A. SAG
PHILIP HOFMEISTER
Affiliation:
Department of Language & Linguistics, University of Essex, UK
LAURA STAUM CASASANTO
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, SUNY at Stony Brook, NY
IVAN A. SAG
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Linguistic acceptability judgments are widely agreed to reflect constraints on real-time language processing. Nonetheless, very little is known about how processing costs affect acceptability judgments. In this paper, we explore how processing limitations are manifested in acceptability judgment data. In a series of experiments, we consider how two factors relate to judgments for sentences with varying degrees of complexity: (1) the way constraints combine (i.e., additively or super-additively), and (2) the way a comprehender’s memory resources influence acceptability judgments. Results indicate that multiple sources of processing difficulty can combine to produce super-additive effects, and that there is a positive linear relationship between reading span scores and judgments for sentences whose unacceptability is attributable to processing costs. These patterns do not hold for sentences whose unacceptability is attributable to factors other than processing costs, e.g., grammatical constraints. We conclude that tests of (super)-additivity and of relationships to reading span scores can help to identify the effects of processing difficulty on acceptability judgments, although these tests cannot be used in contexts of extreme processing difficulty.

Keywords

sentence processingacceptability judgmentsgrammarindividual differencesworking memory

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 111 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

Addresses for correspondence: Philip Hofmeister, Department of Language & Linguistics, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom. e-mail: phofme@essex.ac.uk.

References

references

Baayen, R. H. (2008). Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, R. H., Davidson, D., & Bates, D. (2008). Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language, 59 (4), 390–412.Google Scholar
Bard, E., Robertson, D., & Sorace, A. (1996). Magnitude estimation of linguistic acceptability. Language, 72 (1), 32–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartek, B., Lewis, R., Vasishth, S., & Smith, M. (2011). In search of on-line locality effects in sentence comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37 (5), 1178–1198.Google Scholar
Bever, T. (1970). The cognitive basis for linguistic structures. In Hayes, J. R. (Ed.), Cognition and the development of language (pp. 279–362). New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Bever, T., Carroll, J., & Hurtig, R. (1976). Analogy; or, ungrammatical sequences that are utterable and comprehensible are the origins of new grammars in language acquisition and linguistic evolution. In Bever, T.Katz, J., & Langendoen, D. T. (Eds.), An integrated theory of linguistic ability (pp. 149–182). New York: Crowell.Google Scholar
Bod, R. (2006). Exemplar-based syntax: How to get productivity from examples. The Linguistic Review, 23 (3), 291–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bod, R. (2009). From exemplar to grammar: A probabilistic analogy-based model of language learning. Cognitive Science, 33 (5), 752–793.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bybee, J. (2007). From usage to grammar: The mind’s response to repetition. Language, 82 (4), 711–733.Google Scholar
Caplan, D., & Waters, G. (1999). Verbal working memory and sentence comprehension. Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 22 (1), 77–126.Google Scholar
Chapman, R. (1974). The interpretation of deviant sentences in English: A transformational approach. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1973). Conditions on transformations. In Anderson, S. & Kiparsky, P. (Eds.), A festschrift for Morris Halle (pp. 232–286). New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1977). On wh-movement. In Culicover, P., Wasow, T., & Akmajian, A. (Eds.), Formal syntax (pp. 71–132). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1986). Barriers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Conway, A., Kane, M., Bunting, M., Hambrick, D., Wilhelm, O., & Engle, R. (2005). Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user’s guide. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 12 (5), 769–786.Google Scholar
Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 19 (4), 450–466.Google Scholar
Daneman, M., & Hannon, B. (2007). What do working memory span tasks like reading span really measure? In Osaka, N., Logie, R., & D’Esposito, M. (Eds.), The cognitive neuroscience of working memory (pp. 21–42). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fanselow, G., & Frisch, S. (2004). Effects of processing difficulty on judgments of acceptability. In Fanselow, G.Fery, C.Schlesewsky, M., & Vogel, R. (Eds.), Gradience in grammar (pp. 291–316). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Featherston, S. (2008). Thermometer judgments as linguistic evidence. In Claudia, M. & Rothe, A. (Eds.), Was ist linguistische Evidenz? (pp. 69–89). Aachen: Shaker Verlag.Google Scholar
Fedorenko, E., Gibson, E., & Rohde, D. (2007). The nature of working memory in linguistic, arithmetic and spatial integration processes. Journal of Memory and Language, 56 (2), 246– 269.Google Scholar
Ferreira, V., & Pashler, H. (2002). Central bottleneck influences on the processing stages of word production. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 28 (6), 1187–1199.Google Scholar
Forster, K., & Forster, J. (2003). DMDX: A Windows display program with millisecond accuracy. Behavior Research Methods, 35 (1), 116–124.Google Scholar
Frazier, L. (1985). Syntactic complexity. In Dowty, D., Karttunen, L., & Zwicky, A. (Eds.), Natural language processing: Psychological, computational, and theoretical perspectives (pp. 129–189). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, N., & Miyake, A. (2004). The reading span test and its predictive power for reading comprehension ability. Journal of Memory and Language, 51 (1), 136–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, E. (1991). A computational theory of human linguistic processing: Memory limitations and processing breakdown (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Gibson, E., & Thomas, J. (1999). Memory limitations and structural forgetting: The perception of complex ungrammatical sentences as grammatical. Language and Cognitive Processes, 14 (3), 225–248.Google Scholar
Gleitman, L., & Gleitman, H. (1970). Phrase and paraphrase: Some innovative uses of language. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. E. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grodner, D., & Gibson, E. (2005). Consequences of the serial nature of linguistic input for sentential complexity. Cognitive Science, 29 (2), 261–290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hofmeister, P., Jaeger, T. F., Arnon, I., Sag, I., & Snider, N. (2013). The source ambiguity problem: Distinguishing the effects of grammar and processing on acceptability judgments. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28 (1), 48–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hofmeister, P., & Sag, I. A. (2010). Cognitive constraints and island effects. Language, 86 (2), 366–415.Google Scholar
Hofmeister, P., Staum Casasanto, L., & Sag, I. A. (2012a). How do individual cognitive differences relate to acceptability judgments? A reply to Sprouse, Wagers, & Phillips. Language, 88 (2), 390–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmeister, P., Staum Casasanto, L., & Sag, I. A. (2012b). Misapplying working memory tests: A reductio ad absurdum. Language, 88 (2), 408–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmeister, P., Staum Casasanto, L., & Sag, I. A. (2013). Islands in the grammar? Standards of evidence. In Sprouse, J. & Hornstein, N. (Eds.), Experimental syntax and the islands debate, (pp. 42–63). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Just, M., & Carpenter, P. (1992). A capacity theory of comprehension: Individual differences in working memory. Psychological Review, 99 (1), 122–149.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keller, F. (2000). Gradience in grammar: Experimental and computational aspects of degrees of grammaticality (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Kemmer, S., & Barlow, M. (2000). Introduction: A usage-based conception of language. In Barlow, M. & Kemmer, S. (Eds.), Usage-based models of language, (pp. vii-xxviii). Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
King, J., & Just, M. (1991). Individual differences in syntactic processing: The role of working memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 30 (5), 580–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, J., & Kutas, M. (1995). Who did what and when? Using word-and clause-level ERPs to monitor working memory usage in reading. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 7 (3), 376–395.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kluender, R. (1992). Deriving islands constraints from principles of predication. In Goodluck, H. & Rochemont, M. (Eds.), Island constraints: Theory, acquisition and processing (pp. 223–258). Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kluender, R. (1998). On the distinction between strong and weak islands: A processing perspective. In Culicover, P. & McNally, L. (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 29: The limits of syntax (pp. 241–279). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kluender, R., & Kutas, M. (1993). Subjacency as a processing phenomenon. Language and Cognitive Processes, 8 (4), 573–633.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langacker, R. (2000). A dynamic usage-based model. In Kemmer, S. & Barlow, M. (Eds.), Usage-based models of language (pp. 1–63). Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1998). Models of the emergence of language. Annual Review of Psychology, 49 (1), 199–227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, G. (1975). Some comments on competence and performance. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 263 (1), 201–204.Google Scholar
Miller, G., & Chomsky, N. (1963). Finitary models of language users. In Luce, R. D.Bush, R. R., & Galanter, E. (Eds.), Handbook of mathematical psychology, Vol.2 (pp. 419–492). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Pashler, H. (1994). Dual-task interference in simple tasks: Data and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 116 (2), 220−244.Google Scholar
Pashler, H., & Johnston, J. (1998). Attentional limitations in dual-task performance. In Pashler, H. (Ed.), Attention (pp. 155–189). Hove: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Phillips, C. (2006). The real-time status of island phenomena. Language, 82 (4), 795–823.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinheiro, J. C., & Bates, D. M. (2000). Mixed-effects models in S and S-PLUS. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Pritchett, B. (1992). Grammatical competence and parsing performance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pylyshyn, Z. (1973). The role of competence theories in cognitive psychology. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2 (1), 21–50.Google Scholar
Ross, J. R. (1967). Constraints on variables in syntax (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). MIT, Cambridge, MA. [Published in 1986 as Infinite Syntax! by Ablex, Norwood, NJ.]Google Scholar
Schütze, C. (1996). The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sorace, A., & Keller, F. (2005). Gradience in linguistic data. Lingua, 115 (11), 1497–1524.Google Scholar
Sprouse, J. (2007). A program for experimental syntax (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Maryland, College Park.Google Scholar
Sprouse, J. (2009). Revisiting satiation: Evidence for an equalization response strategy. Linguistic Inquiry, 40 (2), 329–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sprouse, J., & Hornstein, N. (Eds.) (2013). Experimental syntax and island effects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sprouse, J., Wagers, M., & Phillips, C. (2012). A test of the relation between working memory and syntactic island effects. Language, 88 (1), 82–123.Google Scholar
Staum Casasanto, L., & Sag, I. A. (2008). The advantage of the ungrammatical. In Love, B.McRae, K., & Sloutsky, V. M. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 601–606). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Sternberg, S. (1969). Memory-scanning: Mental processes revealed by reaction-time experiments. American Scientist, 57 (4), 421–457.Google ScholarPubMed
Tanenhaus, M., Carlson, G., & Seidenberg, M. (1985). Do listeners compute linguistic representations? In Zwicky, A.Kartunnen, L., & Dowty, D. (Eds.), Natural language parsing: Psycholinguistic, theoretical, and computational perspectives (pp. 359–408). London and New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tokimoto, S. (2009). Island phenomenon in Japanese and working memory: Syntactic constraints independent from working memory constraints. Poster presented at the 22nd Annual CUNY Sentence Processing Conference.Google Scholar
Towse, J., Hitch, G., & Hutton, U. (2000). On the interpretation of working memory span in adults. Memory & Cognition, 28 (3), 341–348.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vos, S., Gunter, T., Schriefers, H., & Friederici, A. (2001). Syntactic parsing and working memory: The effects of syntactic complexity, reading span, and concurrent load. Language and Cognitive Processes, 16 (1), 65–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waters, G. S., & Caplan, D. (1996). Processing resource capacity and the comprehension of garden path sentences. Memory & Cognition, 24 (3), 342–355.Google Scholar
Watt, W. (1970). On two hypotheses concerning psycholinguistics. In Hayes, J. R. (Ed.), Cognition and the development of language (pp. 137–220). New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Welford, A. (1952). The ‘psychological refractory period’ and the timing of high-speed performance − a review and a theory. British Journal of Psychology. General Section, 43 (1), 2–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitney, P., Arnett, P., Driver, A., & Budd, D. (2001). Measuring central executive functioning: What’s in a reading span? Brain and Cognition, 45 (1), 1–14.Google Scholar