The Role of Executive Control in Resolving Grammatical Number Conflict in Sentence Comprehension

Abstract

In sentences with a complex subject noun phrase, like "The key to the cabinets is lost", the grammatical number of the head noun (key) may be the same or different from that of the modifier noun phrase (cabinets). When the number is the same, comprehension is usually easier than when it is different. Grammatical number computation may occur while processing the modifier noun (integration phase) or while processing the verb (checking phase). We investigated at which phase number conflict and plausibility of the modifier noun as subject for the verb affect processing, and we imposed a gaze-contingent tone discrimination task in either phase to test whether number computation involves executive control. At both phases, gaze durations were longer when a concurrent tone task was present. Additionally, at the integration phase, gaze durations were longer under number conflict, and this effect was enhanced by the presence of a tone task, whereas no effects of plausibility of the modifier were observed. The finding that the effect of number match was larger under load shows that computation of the grammatical number of the complex noun phrase requires executive control in the integration phase, but not in the checking phase.

The interaction of notional number and morphophonology in subject–verb agreement: A role for working memory

“…Although there are reasons to treat production as separate from comprehension (Tanner, Nicol, & Brehm, 2014), this proposal is similar to recent proposals for how cue-based retrieval would work in agreement comprehension (Nicenboim, Engelmann, Suckow, & Vasishth, 2017; Schlueter et al, 2018). Furthermore, it is consistent with evidence that, even in comprehension, number information is processed both during NP encoding and at the point of encountering the verb (Vandierendonck et al, 2018).…”

“…Each of these processes—capacity, attentional control, and the ability to retrieve information from secondary memory—can contribute to differences in fluid intelligence and to individual differences in higher order cognitive tasks, like agreement production. Vandierendonck, Loncke, Hartsuiker, and Desmet (2018) provides insight into which aspects of working memory affect agreement production by showing a link between executive control abilities and agreement errors, using a gaze-contingent tone discrimination task. It is important to extend this line of research to consider, more precisely, how the mechanisms underlying working memory correlate with language production if we want to better understand the potential causal relationship between working memory and language production.…”

The role of word frequency and morpho-orthography in agreement processing

“…Mirroring the finding that executive control impacts the rate of inhibition of local nouns, (e.g. Vandierendonck et al, 2017;Veenstra et al, 2018), we showed that Stroop cost impacted reading times on the local noun region. This suggests the importance of resolving interference when processing local nouns, and is broadly consistent with new findings of encoding interference during noun processing (e.g.…”

“…Working memory and executive control have also been linked to agreement processing and production, often in combination with each other (e.g. Fyndanis, Arcara, Christidou, & Caplan, 2018;Hartsuiker & Barkhuysen, 2006;Reifegerste, Hauer, & Felser, 2017;Slevc & Martin, 2016;Vandierendonck, Loncke, Hartsuiker, & Desmet, 2017;Veenstra, Antoniou, Katsos, & Kissine, 2018; though see Bock & Cutting, 1992 for null results), and these have also been critically linked to other domains of sentence processing (Badre & Wagner, 2007;Christianson, Williams, Zacks, & Ferreira, 2006;Daneman & Carpenter, 1980;Hussey et al, 2017;Hussey & Novick, 2012;Hussey, Ward, Christianson, & Kramer, 2015;January, Trueswell, & Thompson-Schill, 2009;King & Just, 1991;MacDonald, Just, & Carpenter, 1992;Novick, Trueswell, & Thompson-Schill, 2005;Snyder & Munakata, 2008;Swets, Desmet, Hambrick, & Ferreira, 2007;Vuong & Martin, 2014;Ye & Zhou, 2009). Given the plausible role for these cognitive mechanisms in agreement processing, and given the large sample of participants used in this experiment, we decided to use any time remaining in the 1 hour experimental session after the self-paced reading study to collect four continuous individual difference measures (Vocabulary Size, Reading Span, Verb Selection Cost, and Stroop Cost, see Appendix A for methods).…”