Reflexive anaphor resolution in spoken language comprehension: structural constraints and beyond

Abstract

We report results from an eye-tracking during listening study examining English-speaking adults’ online processing of reflexive pronouns, and specifically whether the search for an antecedent is restricted to syntactically appropriate positions. Participants listened to a short story where the recipient of an object was introduced with a reflexive, and were asked to identify the object recipient as quickly as possible. This allowed for the recording of participants’ offline interpretation of the reflexive, response times, and eye movements on hearing the reflexive. Whilst our offline results show that the ultimate interpretation for reflexives was constrained by binding principles, the response time, and eye-movement data revealed that during processing participants were temporarily distracted by a structurally inappropriate competitor antecedent when this was prominent in the discourse. These results indicate that in addition to binding principles, online referential decisions are also affected by discourse-level information.

Teasing apart retrieval and encoding interference in the processing of anaphors

“…The results of the above cited studies are mixed. In antecedent-match conditions, increased processing difficulty due to the presence of a cue-matching distractor has been reported by Badecker and Straub ( 2002 ), Experiments 3, 4, Chen et al ( 2012 ), Clackson and Heyer ( 2014 ), Jäger et al ( 2015 ), Experiment 2, and Patil et al (unpublished manuscript). By contrast, Sturt ( 2003 ), Experiment 1, and Cunnings and Felser ( 2013 ), Experiment 2 found a facilitation due to a cue-matching distractor.…”

“…To summarize, for materials as the ones presented in (3), both encoding interference and cue-based retrieval interference predict that a matching distractor leads to a processing slow-down in antecedent-match conditions and to a speed-up in antecedent-mismatch conditions. For online reading time measures, both accounts thus make precisely the same predictions and can account for the inhibitory effects in antecedent-match conditions reported by Badecker and Straub ( 2002 ), Chen et al ( 2012 ), Clackson and Heyer ( 2014 ), Jäger et al ( 2015 ) and Patil et al (unpublished manuscript) as well as for the facilitatory effects in antecedent-mismatch conditions reported by King et al ( 2012 ) and Parker and Phillips ( 2014 ). For retrieval probabilities (to be reflected in response accuracies of adequate comprehension questions), both accounts also make the same predictions for antecedent-match conditions but differ in their predictions for antecedent-mismatch conditions.…”

“…If, in contrast, no effect of a feature-matching distractor is observed, this can be taken as evidence for a structure-based account. This experimental design (or a variation thereof) was used by a large number of studies which aimed to decide whether an unconstrained cue-based retrieval or a structure-based access underlies the processing of reflexive antecedent-dependencies (Nicol and Swinney, 1989 ; Badecker and Straub, 2002 ; Sturt, 2003 ; Xiang et al, 2009 ; Chen et al, 2012 ; King et al, 2012 ; Cunnings and Felser, 2013 ; Dillon et al, 2013 ; Clackson and Heyer, 2014 ; Kush and Phillips, 2014 ; Parker and Phillips, 2014 ; Jäger et al, 2015 ; Patil et al, unpublished manuscript). Some of the cited studies also manipulated feature-match of the structurally accessible antecedent ( surgeon in Example 3).…”

The role of cognitive control in anaphor resolution in children with specific language impairment

“…Some studies have found no evidence for the activation of syntactically incorrect potential antecedents in the case of reflexives (cross-modal priming: Nicol, 1988; Nicol & Swinney, 1989; eye tracking during listening: Clackson, Felser, & Clahsen, 2011; event-related potential: Xiang, Dillon, & Phillips, 2009), while other results support the activation of multiple potential antecedents for reflexives as well (self-paced reading: Badecker & Straub, 2002; eye-tracking during reading: Cunnings & Felser, 2013; eye-tracking during listening: Clackson & Heyer, 2014). Although Clackson and Heyer (2014) also emphasize that the effect is stronger in the case of pronouns, they argue that the lack of evidence for multiple potential antecedents during reflexive processing in other studies is due to a methodological flaw. Overall, online sentence comprehension studies suggest that when there is a prominent potential antecedent in the discourse context during the processing of reflexives and pronouns, the processing system does not rule it out immediately even if it is inappropriate based on binding principles.…”

Similarity-based interference in sentence comprehension: Literature review and Bayesian meta-analysis

“…However, this issue is currently impossible to RETRIEVAL INTERFERENCE: META-ANALYSIS 26 quantitatively address in the meta-analysis as not enough data are available.Reflexive-/reciprocal-antecedent dependenciesTarget-match configurations. Among the studies that did observe significant effects in target-match configurations, most found inhibitory interference(Jäger et al, 2015, Experiment 1; Felser et al, 2009, c-command cue; Badecker & Straub, 2002, Experiments 3, 4;Patil, Vasishth, & Lewis, 2016;Clackson & Heyer, 2014). By contrast, facilitatory interference was found inSturt (2003, Experiment 1), and inCunnings and Felser (2013, Experiment 2, participants with low working memory capacity).…”