Sentence-picture verification models as theories of sentence comprehension: A critique of Carpenter and Just.

Abstract

We consider several recent information^processing models of sentence-picture matching to assess their implications for sentence processing. The representational component of the models describes a task-specific that is derived from a more general representation needed for comprehension. The specific models do not describe the processes by which these representations are derived; nor do the assumptions common to the models shed light on the structure of these verification representations. The models are, at best, detailed descriptions of the processes by which subjects verify sentences that they have already understood against pictures that they have already perceived. How do we understand the relevant meaning of sentences used in ordinary contexts? This is a central problem in psychology and a primary preoccupation of the psycholinguist. One particularly difficult aspect of this problem is that we know very little about the role of contexts in language comprehension. A natural starting point for investigating this question is to limit the context, the sentence, and their relation in an experimental task. Recently, this approach has been applied to sentence verification in tasks in which subjects are asked to judge whether a picture matches a sentence. The verification times are used to motivate information models that describe what subjects do as a stage-by-stage process. These models appear to be elegant paradigms for the study of comprehension . They contain both a representation al and a processing component, and they utilize the apparent formalistic rigor of the information-processing approach. In the latest of these proposals, Carpenter and Just (197S) present a broad-ranging information-processing model that encompasses most of the previous models. In the present paper we examine several of these models, focusing on Carpenter and Just's interpretation in order to evaluate the actual and potential contribution of models of sentence-picture verification tasks to the study of comprehension.