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The Representation of Relative Sentences and Memory Access : The Effect of Syntactic Constraints, Pragmatic Constraints, and Working Memory

The Korean Journal of Cognitive and Biological Psychology / The Korean Journal of Cognitive and Biological Psychology, (P)1226-9654; (E)2733-466X
1997, v.9 no.1, pp.119-138
Jin-Sup Eom (Dept. of Psychology, Chungbuk National University)
Seungbok Lee (Dept. of Psychology, Chungbuk National University)
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Abstract

The present study examined how the syntactic and pragmatic constraints, and working memory affected to the representation of sentence constituents. Relative sentences with 3 nouns and 2 verbs were used to see the effects of the three constraints together. The strengths of the effects were measured by the reaction time to recognize one of the three nouns. In experiment 1, center-embedded relative sentences(SOV/OO, OSV/SO) were used. The results were: First, syntactic and pragmatic constraints affected to the nouns with equal strength. Second, the effect of working memory was not observed. Third, the main clause was processed more because of the limit of the processing capacity. In experiment 2, to see the effect of working memory, left-branching relative sentences(SOV/SO, OSV/OO) was used. The results were: First, in the SOV/SO, the accessibility of the sentence nouns was not varied, because of the canonical(subject-object) order of the subordinate clause. Second, in the OSV/OO, the accessibility of the thee nouns was all different, and that pragmatic constraints affected the representation of the sentence constituents mote than the working memory. The results of experiment 1 and 2 provides that syntactic and pragmatic constraints affect the representation with the same intensity, and the working memory affects less than the two constraints. However, the accuracy of recognition shows the effects of working memory.

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The Korean Journal of Cognitive and Biological Psychology