An anaphoric reference to the complement-set is a reference to the set that does not fulfil the predicate of the preceding sentence. Preferred reference to the complement-set has been found in eye movements when a character's implicit desire for a high amount has been denied using a negative emotion. We recorded event-related potentials to examine…

Speakers typically design definite referring expressions to uniquely identify the intended referent with respect to the alternatives in the referential context, and addressees interpret these expressions with respect to the contextual alternatives. Although it is clear that the relevant context includes entities in the immediate context, less…

We report two text change-detection studies in which we investigate the influence of reading perspective on text memory. In Experiment 1 participants read from the perspective of one of two characters in a series of short stories, and word changes were either semantically close or distant. Participants correctly reported more changes to…

This study presents a new approach for transforming the latent representation derived from a Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) space into one where dimensions have nonlatent meanings. These meanings are based on lexical descriptors, which are selected by the LSA user. The authors present three analyses that provide examples of the utility of this…

Semantic memory is relatively stable across the lifespan (LaBarge, Edwards, & Knesevich, 1986). However, most research has been conducted at the single concept level (LaBarge et al., 1986, Spaniol et al., 2006). Few researchers have examined how semantic knowledge is used in discourse. The purpose of the study, then, was to determine the…

Statements containing quantity information are commonplace. Although there is literature explaining the way in which quantities themselves are conveyed in numbers or words (e.g., "many", "probably"), there is less on the effects of different types of quantity description on the processing of surrounding text. Given that…

Attentional control of referential information is an important contributor to the structure of discourse. We investigated how attention and memory interplay during visually situated sentence production. We manipulated speakers' attention to the agent or the patient of a described event by means of a referential or a dot visual cue. We also…

Two experiments explored the hypothesis that anaphors and demonstratives signal different procedural instructions: Whereas the anaphor "it" brings a concrete entity into a reader's focus, the demonstrative "this" directs the focus to a predicate proposition in a discourse representation. The findings from an online eye-tracking…

Previous research has shown that information referring to a named character or to information in the main clause of a sentence is more accessible and facilitates the processing of anaphoric references. We investigated whether the use of such cues are maintained in healthy aging. We present two experiments investigating whether information…

Natural language processing (NLP) provides a powerful approach for discourse processing researchers. However, there remains a notable degree of hesitation by some researchers to consider using NLP, at least on their own. The purpose of this article is to introduce and make available a "simple" NLP (SiNLP) tool. The overarching goal of…

In garden path (GP) jokes, a first dominant interpretation is detected as incoherent and subsequently substituted by a hidden joke interpretation. Two important factors for the processing of GP jokes are salience of the initial interpretation and accessibility of the hidden interpretation. Both factors are assumed to be affected by contextual…

The present research examines the mechanisms underlying the comprehension of focus alternatives. In particular, we investigate whether listeners determine alternatives based on general semantic priming mechanisms or whether they only consider contrastive alternatives, elements that can replace the expression in focus. In a probe recognition…

Embodied theories of language comprehension propose that readers construct a mental simulation of described objects that contains perceptual characteristics of their real-world referents. The present study is the first to investigate directly whether implied object size is mentally simulated during sentence comprehension and to study the potential…

This study investigated the effects of auditory and audiovisual text presentation on the three levels of mental representations assumed in theories of discourse processing. A sample of 106 children aged 7, 9, and 11 years listened to 16 short narrative texts, 8 of which were accompanied by a series of pictures illustrating the content.…

This article discusses the use of the Finnish change-of-state token "aa" that has previously not been identified. The central claim is that even though "aa" indicates a cognitive shift experienced by the speaker, it does not function as a receipt of new information. Instead, the token "aa" indicates that the speaker…