Context-Independent Sentence Processing
Susan Borsky, Lewis P. Shapiro · 1998
Although it is clear that all kinds of information affect sentence interpretation at some point, such initially context-independent processing could optimize speed and resources by reducing the cognitive and memory demands of including multiple sources of information that may not be needed. This chapter reports the outcome of a number of investigations of context effects in normal populations, and the kind of data that support different processing accounts. It presents the results of some recent experiments investigating context integration, and concludes with a discussion of the importance of the experimental task for interpreting data. The speed and efficiency of language comprehension demands that a theoretical model be equally rapid and efficient. Certainly, more cross-language experiments also help psycholinguists draw closer to the goal of discovering, describing, and ultimately of understanding the universal principles of human language.