Passives are not hard to interpret but hard to remember: evidence from online and offline studies

References

• Alexiadou, A., Anagnostopoulou, E., & Schäfer, F. (2018). Passive. In N. Hornstein, H. Lasnik, P. Patel-Grosz, & C. Yang (Eds.), Syntactic structures 60 years on. The impact of the chomskyan revolution in linguistics (pp. 403–425). Berlin: Mouton DeGruyter.
   Google Scholar
• Ambridge, B., Bidgood, A., Pine, J. M., Rowland, C. F., & Freudenthal, D. (2016). Is passive syntax semantically constrained? Evidence from adult grammaticality judgment and comprehension studies. Cognitive Science, 40, 1435–1459. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12277
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Anderson, J. R. (1974). Verbatim and propositional representation of sentences in immediate and long-term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13, 149–162. doi: 10.1016/S0022-5371(74)80039-3
   Google Scholar
• Barr, D. J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C., & Tily, H. J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language, 68, 255–278. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2012.11.001
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Belletti, A., & Rizzi, L. (1988). Psych verbs and theta theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 6, 291–352. doi: 10.1007/BF00133902
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Belsley, D. (1991). Conditioning diagnostics: Collinearity and weak data in regression. New York: Wiley.
   Google Scholar
• Bever, T. G. (1970). The cognitive basis for linguistic structures. In J. R. Hayes (Ed.), Cognition and the development of language (pp. 279–352). New York: Wiley.
   Google Scholar
• Boland, J. E., & Blodgett, A. (2006). Argument status and PP-attachment. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 35, 385–403. doi: 10.1007/s10936-006-9021-z
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Borer, H., & Wexler, K. (1987). The maturation of syntax. In T. Roeper & E. Willliams (Eds.), Parameter setting and language acquisition (pp. 123–172). Dordrecht: Reidel.
   Google Scholar
• Boyle, W., Lindell, A. K., & Kidd, E. (2013). Investigating the role of verbal working memory in young children’s sentence comprehension. Language Learning, 63, 211–242. doi: 10.1111/lang.12003
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Caplan, D., Dede, G., Waters, G., Michaud, J., & Tripodis, Y. (2011). Effects of age, speed of processing, and working memory on comprehension of sentences with relative clauses. Psychology and Aging, 26, 439–450. doi: 10.1037/a0021837
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Caplan, D., Vijayan, S., Kuperberg, G., West, C., Waters, G., Greve, D., & Dale, A. M. (2002). Vascular responses to syntactic processing: Event-related fMRI study of relative clauses. Human Brain Mapping, 15, 26–38. doi: 10.1002/hbm.1059
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Caplan, D., & Waters, G. S. (2013). Memory mechanisms supporting syntactic comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 20, 243–268. doi: 10.3758/s13423-012-0369-9
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Caplan, D., Waters, G., Dede, G., Michaud, J., & Reddy, A. (2007). A study of syntactic processing in aphasia I: Behavioral (psycholinguistic) aspects. Brain and Language, 101, 103–150. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2006.06.225
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Carrithers, C. (1989). Syntactic complexity does not necessarily make sentences harder to understand. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 18, 75–88. doi: 10.1007/BF01069048
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
   Google Scholar
• Christianson, K. (2016). When language comprehension goes wrong for the right reasons: Good enough, underspecified, or shallow language processing. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69, 817–828. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2015.1134603
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Christianson, K., Hollingworth, A., Halliwell, J. F., & Ferreira, F. (2001). Thematic roles assigned along the garden path linger. Cognitive Psychology, 42, 368–407. doi: 10.1006/cogp.2001.0752
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Christianson, K., Luke, S. G., & Ferreira, F. (2010). Effects of plausibility on structural priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36, 538–544. doi: 10.1037/a0018027
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Christianson, K., Williams, C. C., Zacks, R. T., & Ferreira, F. (2006). Younger and older adults’ “good-enough” interpretations of garden-path sentences. Discourse Processes, 42, 205–238. doi: 10.1207/s15326950dp4202_6
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Collins, C. (2005). A smuggling approach to raising in English. Linguistic Inquiry, 36, 289–298. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9612.2005.00076.x doi: 10.1162/0024389053710701
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Conway, A. R. A., Kane, M. J., Bunting, M. F., Hambrick, D. Z., Wilhelm, O., & Engle, R. W. (2005). Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user’s guide. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12, 769–786. doi: 10.3758/BF03196772
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450–466. doi: 10.1016/S0022-5371(80)90312-6
   Google Scholar
• Dąbrowska, E., & Street, J. (2006). Individual differences in language attainment: Comprehension of passive sentences by native and non-native English speakers. Language Sciences, 28, 604–615. doi: 10.1016/j.langsci.2005.11.014
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• DeDe, G., Caplan, D., Kemtes, K., & Waters, G. (2004). The relationship between age, verbal working memory, and language comprehension. Psychology and Aging, 19, 601–616. doi: 10.1037/0882-7974.19.4.601
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Dickey, M. W., & Thompson, C. K. (2009). Automatic processing of wh- and NP-movement in agrammatic aphasia: Evidence from eyetracking. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 22, 563–583. doi: 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2009.06.004
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Evans, W. S., Caplan, D., Ostrowski, A., Michaud, J., Guarino, A. J., & Waters, G. (2015). Working memory and the revision of syntactic and discourse ambiguities. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 69, 136–155. doi: 10.1037/cep0000037
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Fedorenko, E., Gibson, E., & Rohde, D. (2006). The nature of working memory capacity in sentence comprehension: Evidence against domain-specific working memory resources. Journal of Memory and Language, 54, 541–553. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2005.12.006
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Ferreira, F. (2003). The misinterpretation of noncanonical sentences. Cognitive Psychology, 47, 164–203. doi: 10.1016/S0010-0285(03)00005-7
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Ferreira, F., & Christianson, K. (2016). Is now-or-never language processing good enough? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, 1–72. doi:10.1017/S0140525X1500031X doi: 10.1017/S0140525X15000771
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Ferreira, F., & Patson, N. D. (2007). The ‘good enough’ approach to language comprehension. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1, 71–83. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-818X.2007.00007.x
   Google Scholar
• Garnham, A., & Oakhill, J. (1987). Interpreting elliptical verb phrases. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 39, 611–627. doi: 10.1080/14640748708401805
   Google Scholar
• Gehrke, B., & Grillo, N. (2009). How to become passive. In K. K. Grohmann (Ed.), Explorations of phase theory: Features and arguments (pp. 231–268). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
   Google Scholar
• Gibson, E. (1998). Linguistic complexity: Locality of syntactic dependencies. Cognition, 68, 1–76. doi: 10.1016/S0010-0277(98)00034-1
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Gordon, P., & Chafetz, J. (1990). Verb-based versus class-based accounts of actionality effects in children’s comprehension of passives. Cognition, 36, 227–254. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(90)90058-R
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Gordon, P. C., Hendrick, R., Johnson, M., & Lee, Y. (2006). Similarity-based interference during language comprehension: Evidence from eye tracking during reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 32, 1304–1321. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.32.6.1304
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Gordon, P. C., Hendrick, R., & Johnson, M. (2001). Memory interference during language processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 27, 1–13. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.27.6.1411
   Google Scholar
• Gordon, P. C., Hendrick, R., & Levine, W. H. (2002). Memory-load interference in syntactic processing. Psychological Science, 13, 425–430. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.00475
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Grimshaw, J. (1990). Argument structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
   Google Scholar
• Grodner, D. J., & Gibson, E. A. F. (2005). Consequences of the serial nature of linguistic input for sentenial complexity. Cognitive Science, 29, 261–290. doi: 10.1207/s15516709cog0000_7
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Grodzinsky, Y. (1990). Theoretical perspectives on language deficits. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
   Google Scholar
• Grodzinsky, Y. (1995). Trace deletion, theta-roles, and cognitive strategies. Brain and Language, 51, 469–497. doi: 10.1006/brln.1995.1072
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Grodzinsky, Y. (2000). The neurology of syntax: Language use without Broca’s area. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 1–21. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X00002399
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Hakes, D. T., Evans, J. S., & Brannon, L. L. (1976). Understanding sentences with relative clauses. Memory and Cognition, 4, 283–290. doi: 10.3758/BF03213177
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Hale, J. (2001). A probabilistic Earley parser as a psycholinguistic model. Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 159–166. doi: 10.3115/1073336.1073357
   Google Scholar
• Hofmeister, P. (2011). Representational complexity and memory retrieval in language comprehension. Language and Cognitive Processes, 26, 376–405. doi: 10.1080/01690965.2010.492642
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Ito, A., Martin, A. E., & Nieuwland, M. S. (2016). How robust are prediction effects in language comprehension? Failure to replicate article-elicited N400 effects. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 1–12. doi: 10.1080/23273798.2016.1242761
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J., & Perrig, W. J. (2008). Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105, 6829–6833. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0801268105
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Perrig, W. J., & Meier, B. (2010). The concurrent validity of the N-back task as a working memory measure. Memory, 18, 394–412. doi: 10.1080/09658211003702171
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Johns, B. T., & Jones, M. N. (2015). Generating structure from experience: A retrieval-based model of language processing. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 15, 1196–1961. doi: 10.1037/cep0000053
   Google Scholar
• Just, M., & Carpenter, P. (1992). A capacity theory of comprehension: Individual differences in working memory. Psychological Review, 99, 122–149. doi:10.1037//0033-295X.99.1.122 doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.99.1.122
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Kamide, Y., Scheepers, C., & Altmann, G. T. M. (2003). Integration of syntactic and semantic information in predictive processing: Cross-linguistic evidence from German and English. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32, 37–55. doi: 10.1023/A:1021933015362
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Kane, M. J. (2005). Full frontal fluidity? Looking in on the neuroimaging of reasoning and intelligence. In O. Wilhelm & R. W. Engle (Eds.), Handbook of understanding and measuring intelligence (pp. 141–163). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
   Google Scholar
• Kane, M. J., & Engle, R. W. (2002). The role of prefrontal cortex in working-memory capacity, executive attention, and general fluid intelligence: An individual-differences perspective. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9, 637–671. doi: 10.3758/BF03196323
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Karimi, H., & Ferreira, F. (2016). Good-enough linguistic representations and online cognitive equilibrium in language processing. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69, 1013–1040. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2015.1053951
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Kim, J. H., & Christianson, K. (2013). Sentence complexity and working memory effects in ambiguity resolution. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 42, 393–411. doi: 10.1007/s10936-012-9224-4
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Kiparsky, P. (2013). Towards a null theory of the passive. Lingua, 125, 7–33. doi: 10.1016/j.lingua.2012.09.003
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Konieczny, L. (2000). Locality and parsing complexity. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 29, 627–645. doi: 10.1023/A:1026528912821
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Levy, R. (2007). Expectation-based syntactic comprehension. Cognition, 106, 1–53. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2007.05.006
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Love, T., & Swinney, D. (1996). Coreference processing and levels of analysis in object-relative constructions: Demonstration of antecedent reactivation with the cross-modal priming paradigm. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 25, 5–24. doi: 10.1007/BF01708418
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• MacDonald, M. C. (2013). How language production shapes language form and comprehension. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 226–242. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00226
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Mack, J. E., Meltzer-Asscher, A., Barbieri, E., & Thompson, C. K. (2013). Neural correlates of processing passive sentences. Brain Sciences, 3, 1198–1214. doi: 10.3390/brainsci3031198
   PubMedGoogle Scholar
• Maratsos, M. P., Fox, E. C., Becher, J., & Chalkley, M. A. (1985). Semantic restrictions on children’s passives. Cognition, 19, 167–191. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(85)90017-4
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Messenger, K., Branigan, H. P., McLean, J. F., & Sorace, A. (2012). Are children’s early passives semantically constrained? Evidence from syntactic priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 66, 568–587. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2012.03.008
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Osterhout, L., & Swinney, D. (1993). On the temporal course of gap-filling during comprehension of verbal passives. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 22, 273–286. doi: 10.1007/BF01067834
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Reali, F., & Christiansen, M. H. (2007). Processing of relative clauses is made easier by frequency of occurrence. Journal of Memory and Language, 57, 1–23. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2006.08.014
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Roberts, R., & Gibson, E. (2002). Individual differences in working memory. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31, 573–598. doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2005.07.002 doi: 10.1023/A:1021213004302
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Santi, A., & Grodzinsky, Y. (2010). fMRI adaptation dissociates syntactic complexity dimensions. Neuroimage, 51, 1285–1293. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.03.034
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Shanks, D. R., Vadillo, M. A., Riedel, B., Clymo, A., Govind, S., Hickin, N., … Puhlmann, L. M. (2015). Romance, risk, and replication: Can consumer choices and risk-taking be primed by mating motives? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144, e142–e158. doi: 10.1037/xge0000116
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Snyder, W., & Hyams, N. (2015). Minimality effects in children’s passives. In E. Di Domenico, C. Hamann, & S. Matteini (Eds.), Structures, strategies and beyond (pp. 343–368). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
   Google Scholar
• Sprouse, J., Wagers, M., & Phillips, C. (2012). A test of the relation between working-memory capacity and syntactic island effects. Language, 88, 401–407. doi: 10.1353/lan.2012.0029
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Staub, A. (2010). Eye movements and processing difficulty in object relative clauses. Cognition, 116, 71–86. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2010.04.002
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Street, J. A., & Dąbrowska, E. (2010). Lexically-specific knowledge and individual differences in adult native speakers’ processing of the English passive. Applied Psycholinguistics, 1–22. doi: 10.1017/S0142716412000367
   Google Scholar
• Swets, B., Desmet, T., Hambrick, D. Z., & Ferreira, F. (2007). The role of working memory in syntactic ambiguity resolution: A psychometric approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136, 64–81. doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.136.1.64
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Thothathiri, M., Kim, A., Trueswell, J. C., & Thompson-Schill, S. L. (2012). Parametric effects of syntactic-semantic conflict in Broca’s area during sentence processing. Brain and Language, 120, 259–264. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2011.12.004
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Townsend, D. J., & Bever, T. G. (2001). Sentence comprehension: The integration of habits and rules. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
   Google Scholar
• Traxler, M. J., Corina, D. P., Morford, J. P., Hafer, S., & Hoversten, L. J. (2014). Deaf readers’ response to syntactic complexity: Evidence from self-paced reading. Memory & Cognition, 42, 97–111. doi: 10.3758/s13421-013-0346-1
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Traxler, M. J., Morris, R. K., & Seely, R. E. (2002). Processing subject and object relative clauses: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language, 47, 69–90. doi: 10.1006/jmla.2001.2836
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Tutunjian, D., & Boland, J. E. (2008). Do we need a distinction between arguments and adjuncts? Evidence from psycholinguistic studies of comprehension. Language and Linguistics Compass, 2, 631–646. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00071.x
   Google Scholar
• Van Dyke, J. A., & McElree, B. (2011). Cue-dependent interference in comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 65, 247–263. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2011.05.002
   PubMed Web of Science ®Google Scholar
• Volpato, F., Verin, L., & Cardinaletti, A. (2015). The comprehension and production of verbal passives by Italian preschool-age children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 1–31. doi: 10.1017/S0142716415000302
   Web of Science ®Google Scholar