Retrieval cues and syntactic ambiguity resolution: speed-accuracy tradeoff evidence

ABSTRACT

Language comprehension involves coping with ambiguity and recovering from misanalysis. Syntactic ambiguity resolution is associated with increased reading times, a classic finding that has shaped theories of sentence processing. However, reaction times conflate the time it takes a process to complete with the quality of the behavior-related information available to the system. We therefore used the speed-accuracy tradeoff procedure (SAT) to derive orthogonal estimates of processing time and interpretation accuracy, and tested whether stronger retrieval cues (via semantic relatedness: neighed->horse vs. fell->horse) aid interpretation during recovery. On average, ambiguous sentences took 250ms longer (SAT rate) to interpret than unambiguous controls, demonstrating veridical differences in processing time. Retrieval cues more strongly related to the true subject always increased accuracy, regardless of ambiguity. These findings are consistent with a language processing architecture where cue-driven operations give rise to interpretation, and wherein diagnostic cues aid retrieval, regardless of parsing difficulty or structural uncertainty.

KEYWORDS:

• Sentence processing
• reanalysis
• retrieval interference
• cue-based retrieval
• speed-accuracy tradeoff

Acknowledgements

We thank Kathy Akey and Lisbeth Dyer for assistance with data collection. We are grateful to Janet Dean Fodor and Mante S. Nieuwland for comments on an earlier version of this work. All errors remain our own. This research was supported by a National Institutes of Health grant [R01-HD056200] awarded to BM. AEM was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship [2006025605], a Juan de la Cierva Fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [JCI-2011-10228], and a Future Research Leaders grant from the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom [ES/K009095/1].

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Andrea E. Martin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3395-7234

Notes

1. If the conditions are reduced to perform a 2 (Ambiguity: Ambiguous, Unambiguous) × 2(Diagnosticity: Local noun-related verb, Subject-related verb) rmANOVA, we find a marginal main effect of Ambiguity and a main effect of Diagnosticity, F₁ (1,14) = 3.18, p < .10, F₂ (1, 33) = 22.14, p < .001 for Ambiguity and F₁ (2,28) = 50.59, p < .001, F₂ (2, 66) = 12.28, p < .01 for Diagnosticity, respectively. The interaction between Ambiguity and Diagnosticity becomes significant by participants, F₁ (2,28) = 6.37, p < .05, F₂ (2, 66) = 1.20, p < .28.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Division of Graduate Education: [grant number Graduate Research Fellowship 2006025605]; Economic and Social Research Council: [grant number ES/K009095/1]; Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development: [grant number R01-HD056200]; Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación: [grant number Juan de la Cierva Fellowship JCI-2011-10228].