Abstract
The cue-based retrieval theory (Lewis et al., 2006) predicts that interference from similar distractors should create difficulty for argument integration, however this hypothesis has only been examined in the written modality. The current study uses the Visual World Paradigm (VWP) to assess its feasibility to study retrieval interference arising from distractors present in a visual display during spoken language comprehension. The study aims to extend findings from Van Dyke and McElree (2006), which utilized a dual-task paradigm with written sentences in which they manipulated the relationship between extra-sentential distractors and the semantic retrieval cues from a verb, to the spoken modality. Results indicate that retrieval interference effects do occur in the spoken modality, manifesting immediately upon encountering the verbal retrieval cue for inaccurate trials when the distractors are present in the visual field. We also observed indicators of repair processes in trials containing semantic distractors, which were ultimately answered correctly. We conclude that the VWP is a useful tool for investigating retrieval interference effects, including both the online effects of distractors and their after-effects, when repair is initiated. This work paves the way for further studies of retrieval interference in the spoken modality, which is especially significant for examining the phenomenon in pre-reading children, non-reading adults (e.g., people with aphasia), and spoken language bilinguals.
Highlights
Memory processes are crucial for language comprehension, especially the ability to store linguistic constituents and retrieve them later to combine with new information
We Interference in Spoken Comprehension present a novel application of the Visual World eye-tracking Paradigm (VWP; Altmann, 2004; Trueswell and Tanenhaus, 2005) for studying these memory retrieval processes in spoken language comprehension
The goal of the present experiment was to test whether the Visual World eye-tracking Paradigm can be extended to study retrieval interference in spoken language comprehension
Summary
Memory processes are crucial for language comprehension, especially the ability to store linguistic constituents and retrieve them later (perhaps much later) to combine with new information. It is quite common for linguistically dependent information to be separated by a considerable distance. An example of such a construction is in (1), where a dependent constituent, the girl, is separated from the verb smelled by two relative clauses. The particular novelty of the current study is to test the VWP against the logic of the dual-task paradigm, which has been used previously (Van Dyke and McElree, 2006, 2011) as a means of explicitly manipulating the contents of memory, and arguing for retrieval interference (as opposed to encoding interference) in processing of spoken sentences with syntactic dependencies
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