Computational Linguistics Colloquium

Monday June 11, 11:15, Seminar Room, Building 17
NOTE UNUSUAL DAY AND TIME

Encoding and Retrieval Processes in Human Working Memory: An Empirical Investigation of Hindi Center-Embedding Constructions

I report three experiments involving Hindi center-embedding constructions (CECs) which investigate working memory constraints on sentence processing. Two interesting results emerge: (i) processing difficulty during the encoding/storage of noun phrases (NPs) in working memory is a more important factor than hitherto assumed by sentence processing models such as those of Gibson (Babyonyshev and Gibson 1999) and Lewis (1998), and (ii) adjacent similarly case-marked NPs result in increased retrieval/integration difficulty at the verb, as predicted by Lewis' interference theory.

Thus, the Hindi processing facts are only partly consistent with Lewis' model: his model does not account for processing difficulty at adjacent, similarly case-marked NPs. However, these and other NP processing facts can be accounted for by a sentence processing model such as that proposed by Vasishth and Kruijff (2000); this is a theory of abduction-driven processing and is completely compatible with Lewis' model. As for Gibson's model, the present results are partly inconsistent with his model. However, one possibility is that discourse context affects the processing of similarly case-marked marked NPs; if so, these results may not argue against Gibson's model. Further experiments are currently in progress to determine the effect of discourse on the processing of such sentences.

References

Babyonyshev, M. and Gibson, E. (1999) The complexity of nested structures in Japanese. Language, 75(3), 423-450.

Lewis, R. L. (1998) Interference in working memory: Retroactive and proactive interference in parsing. MS, The Ohio State University.

Vasishth, S. and Kruijff, G.-J. M. (2000). Processing as abduction: a sentence processing model. Proceedings of the Workshop on Linguistic Theory and Grammar Implementation. Birmingham University, England.

If you would like to meet with the speaker, please contact Geert-Jan Kruijff.