• ProjectsSyntacticAdaptationSelfPacedReadingExperiment_EpisodicStatistical

Synopsis and Design

This experiment exploits the MV/RC ambiguity, illustrated in (1)-(4).

(1) MV: The experienced soldiers warned about the dangers before the midnight raid.

(2) RC: The experienced soldiers warned about the dangers conducted the midnight raid.

(3) MV (unambiguous): The experienced soldiers spoke about the dangers before the midnight raid.

(4) RC (unambiguous): The experienced soldiers who were told about the dangers conducted the midnight raid.

The episodic processing proposal advanced by Kaschak and Glenberg predicts that readers will initially misparse sentences such as (1) as having the more frequent modifier structure (i.e., they are garden-pathed). This retrieval should subsequently facilitate processing of that modifier structure, even though the modifier interpretation is ultimately ruled out. In several reading experiments, Kaschak and Glenberg find that repeated exposure to the temporarily ambiguous non-standard structure, compared to repeated exposure to the unambiguous standard needs to be+participle structure in (3), facilitates later processing of both the non-standard needs structure (1) and the modifier structure (2), in line with the episodic processing account.

(5) The meal needs to be cooked given that dinner is in an hour. (standard needs)

What does the episodic processing account say about the results reported here? Consider a temporarily ambiguous sentence of the kind employed in the experiments reported above.

(6) The experienced soldiers warned about the dangers conducted the midnight raid.

The episodic processing proposal advanced by Kaschak and Glenberg predicts that, in sentences such as (4), subjects will initially retrieve the MV representation at the verb warned, since there is a stronger a priori expectation for this structure than for the RC structure, and, crucially, this retrieval should subsequently facilitate processing of that structure, even though the MV interpretation is ultimately ruled out. This prediction is not supported by our experiments. On the contrary, Experiment 6 finds that repeated exposure to RCs leads to slower processing of MVs (as predicted by the hypothesis advanced here).