Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T22:02:32.497Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Adapt retrieval rules and inhibit already-existing world knowledge: adjustment of world knowledge’s activation level in auditory sentence comprehension

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2019

QIANYU LI ,
XUQIAN CHEN Open the ORCID record for XUQIAN CHEN [Opens in a new window] ,
QIAONING SU ,
SHUN LIU  and
JIAN HUANG
QIANYU LI
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China, and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science of Guangdong Province, China
XUQIAN CHEN*
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China, and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science of Guangdong Province, China
QIAONING SU
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China, and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science of Guangdong Province, China
SHUN LIU
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China, and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science of Guangdong Province, China
JIAN HUANG
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China, and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science of Guangdong Province, China
*
*Requests for reprints should be addressed to Xuqian Chen, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Shipai Road, Guangzhou 510631, China. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We tested whether the proportion of typical sentences in a series of auditory sentences would lead people to adjust the strength of activation of world knowledge (i.e., retrieval rules adaptation) during comprehension. This issue is important because it could help clarify how people efficiently integrate different memory information in cognitive processes. In two experiments, all task materials were presented to participants as a whole package, in which proportions of typical sentences, with typical final locations, varied under different conditions. In Experiment 1, the proportion of typical sentences was equal to the atypical ones (i.e., 50% typical vs. 50% atypical), whereas in Experiment 2, the proportion of typical sentences was not equal to the atypical ones (i.e., 75% typical vs. 25% atypical, and 25% typical vs. 75% atypical). Visual fixation on the critical area in a visual display before/while hearing the critical words was compared across conditions, and across-condition differences were used as an index of the adaptation of the retrieval rule in the activation of world knowledge. The findings indicated that the adaptation of retrieval rules occurs throughout the whole test package of sentence comprehension, and the strength of activation of world knowledge in sentence comprehension can be adjusted.

Keywords

sentence comprehensionworld knowledgeproportion of typical sentencesretrieval rulesadaptation
Type
Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 645 - 668
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31970983), the China Scholarship Council (No. 201906755010), and the Planned project of Philosophy and Social Science in Jiangmen, 2017 (No.JM2017B12).

References

references

Altmann, G. T. M. & Kamide, Y. (2009). Discourse-mediation of the mapping between language and the visual world: eye movements and mental representation. Cognition 111(1), 55–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, J. R. (1974). Retieval of propositional informaiton from long-term memory. Cognitive Psychology 6, 451–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D. & Byrne, M. D. (2004). An integrated theory of the mind. Psychologyical Review 111(4), 1036–1060.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Lebiere, C. & Matessa, M. (1998). An integrated theory of list memory. Journal of Memory & Language 38, 341–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, J. R. & Reder, L. M. (1999). The fan effect: new results and new theories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 128(2), 186–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barr, D. J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C. & Tily, H. J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: keep it maximal. Jorunal of Memory and Language 68(3), 255–278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Calvo, M. G. & Castillo, M. D. (2001). Bias in predictive inferences during reading. Discourse Processes 32(1), 43–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campion, N. (2004). Predictive inferences are represented as hypothetical facts. Journal of Memory and Language 50, 149–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campitelli, G. (2015). Memory behavior requires knowledge structures, not memory stores. Frontiers in Psychology 6, e01696.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casteel, M. A. (2007). Contextual support and predictive inferences: What do readers generate and keep available for use? Discourse Processes 44(1), 51–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, X., Yang, W., Ma, L. & Li, J. (2018). Integration of world knowledge and temporary information about changes in object location in different stages of sentence comprehension. Frontiers in Psychology 9, e00211.Google ScholarPubMed
Cook, A. E. & Guéraud, S. (2005). What have we been missing? The role of general world knowledge in discourse processing. Discourse Processes 39(2/3), 265–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, A. E., Halleran, J. G. & O’Brien, E. J. (1998). What is readily available during reading? A memory-based view of text processing. Discourse Processes 26(2/3), 109–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, A. E., Limber, J. E. & O’Brien, E. J. (2001). Situation-based context and the availability of predictive inferences. Journal of Memory and Language 44, 220–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, A. E. & O’Brien, E. J. (2014). Knowledge activation, integration, and validation during narrative text comprehension. Discourse Processes 51, 26–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cozijn, R., Noordman, L. G. M. & Vonk, W. (2011). Propositional integration and world-knowledge inference: processes in understanding because sentences. Discourse Processes 48, 475–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delaney, P. F. & Ericsson, K. A. (2016). Long-term working memory and transient storage in reading comprehension: What Is the evidence? Comment on Foroughi, Werner, Barragán, and Boehm-Davis (2015). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 145(10), 1406–1409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ericsson, K. A. & Delaney, P. F. (1999). Long-term working memory as an alternative to capacity models of working memory in everyday skilled performance. In Miyake, A. & Shah, P. (eds), Models of working memory: mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control (pp. 257–297). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ericsson, K. A. & Kintsch, W. (1995). Long-term working memory. Psychological Review 102(2), 211–245.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gobet, F. & Simon, H. A. (1996). Templates in chess memory: a mechanism for recalling several boards. Cognitive Psychology 31, 1–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gordon, P. C., Hendrick, R. & Johnson, M. (2001). Memory interference during language processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 27, 1411–1423.Google ScholarPubMed
Gordon, P. C., Hendrick, R. & Johnson, M. (2004). Effects of noun phrase type on sentence complexity. Journal of Memory & Language 51, 7–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hald, L. A. (2002). The integration of semantic versus world knowledge during on-line sentence comprehension. Unpubished doctora dissertation, University of Arizona.Google Scholar
Hald, L. A., Steenbeek-Planting, E. G. & Hagoort, P. (2007). The interaction of discourse context and world knowledge in online sentence comprehension: evidence from the N400. Brain Research 1146, 210–218.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hare, M., Jones, M., Thomson, C., Kelly, S. & McRae, K. (2009). Activating event knowledge. Cognition 111(2), 151–167.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kamide, Y., Altmann, G. T. M. & Haywood, S. L. (2003). The time-course of prediction in incremental sentence processing: evidence from anticipatory eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language 49, 133–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamide, Y., Lindsay, S., Scheepers, C. & Kukona, A. (2016). Event processing in the visual world: projected motion paths during spoken sentence comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 42(5), 804–812.Google ScholarPubMed
Kintsch, W. (1998). Comprehension: a paradigm for cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kukona, A., Altmann, G. T. M. & Kamide, Y. (2014). Knowing what, where, and when: event comprehension in language processing. Cognition 133(1), 25–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lindsay, S., Scheepers, C. & Kamide, Y. (2013). To dash or to dawdle: verb-associated speed of motion influences eye movements during spoken sentence comprehension. PLoS One, 8(6), e67187.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liversedge, S. P., Drieghe, D., Li, X., Yan, G., Bai, X. & Hyönä, J. (2016). Universality in eye movements and reading: a trilingual investigation. Cognition 147, 1–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Metusalem, R., MKutas, M., Urbach, T. P., Harb, M., MacRas, K. & Elman, J. L. (2012). Generalized event knowledge activation during online sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory & Language 66(4), 545–567.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rayner, K. (1998). Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. . Psychological Bulletin 124, 372–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Speed, L., , J. & Vigliocco, G. (2014). Eye movements reveal the dynamic simulation of speed in language. Cognitive Science 38, 367–382.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van Dyke, J. A. (2007). Interference effects from grammatically unavailable constituents during sentence processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 33, 407–430.Google ScholarPubMed
Villata, S., Tabor, W. & Franck, J. (2018). Encoding and retrieval interference in sentence comprehension: evidence from agreement. Frontiers in Psychology 9(2), e00002.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zhang, J., Wang, X. & He, X. (2015). Effects of agent’s motivation on mental simulation during sentence comprehension (in Chinese). Acta Psychologica Sinica 47(10), 1247–1259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar