Competition and working memory in sentence reading: Evidence from Spanish.

Abstract

We evaluated the validity, preference, and competition of 2 syntactic cues in Spanish (subject-verb agreement and animacy) and the role of working memory (WM) during cue competition in sentence reading. Spanish participants read noun-verb-noun sentences and performed an agent assignment task. Experiment 1 revealed that readers preferred as agent of the sentence (a) the noun that agreed with the verb and (b) the animate noun over the inanimate noun. The subject-verb agreement cue was preferred over animacy. Cue competition arose in reading: Longer reading times were observed for sentences in which subject-verb agreement and animacy guided toward different interpretations. Experiment 2 revealed that the use of syntactic cues depended on WM. High-WM-span readers made use of lexical-semantic information (animacy) and did not show the interference associated with cue competition. Low WM span readers preferred the favourite cue in Spanish (subject-verb agreement) and showed interference when cues competed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).