Reading times show effects of contextual complexity and uncertainty in comprehension of German universal quantifiers

Abstract

We report three experiments, in which we combined self-paced reading with picture-sentence verification to test how reading times are affected by meaning-related processes. In particular, we investigated German sentences containing the universal quantifier alle (“all”) and examined how restrictive processes incrementally interact with other aspects of quantifier meaning, comparably to previous studies using other methods. Our results show that reading times were sensitive towards a match between context and sentence meaning and also towards an interaction between picture complexity and task demands. The results also point to the need for integrated processing models that combine refined notions of the relation between memory and expectations, on the one hand, with assumptions about adaptive processes and about representations involved in compositional interpretation, on the other.