A study testing two theories about the processing of ambiguous sentences is reported. Results suggest that parallel processing and reciprocal interactions underlie the comprehension of ambiguous sentences. (RM)

Three experiments investigated a characteristic of the propositions that underlie sentences. For some of the sentences tested, the same concepts occurred repeatedly across the underlying propositions; for others, concepts were seldom repeated. Repetitions were shown to facilitate sentence processing. (Author/RM)

An experiment investigated the retrieval processes involving a noun with an adjective. Results suggest that a noun's meaning is retrieved in conjunction with an adjective when the phrase describes a familiar concept. (Author/AM)

Two experiments tested the Conceptual Dependency Theory, stating that verbs are represented in memory as combinations of actions and relations encoding underlying conceptual structure. Experiment I results supported the conceptual complexity hypothesis, while II rejected complexity for imagery as the predictor of performance. (CHK)

Research supported in part by a Public Health Service Research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. (VM)

Two experiments are reported to distinguish between the representation of sentences in immediate versus longer-term memory. It is indicated that the immediate representation is a verbatim image of the sentence but at delays there are both verbatim images and propositional representations. (Author/RM)

Research is reported which was directed toward characterizing memory representations which underlie inference intrusions in recall. (Author/RM)

A study is reported investigating the question whether inferences made from sentences occur immediately in comprehension or are in part a function of the way material from sentences is stored in memory. (Author/RM)

Five studies were carried out to analyze role of short-term storage in reading of organized text. By interrupting the subject's reading with a distractor task, information that was being carried in short-term storage was removed. It was found that this interruption effect could be countered by giving the subject the last one or two sentences that…

Three experiments were conducted to study the inferencing processes involved in anaphoric reference. Results show that an anaphora activates both its referent and concepts when in the same proposition as the referent, and that all three, when in the same proposition, are connected in the long-term representation of a text. (PJM)

A theory of comprehension in verification tasks is developed from a general conception of language comprehension. Models are developed for a task involving transfer verbs "borrow" and "loan" and the possession verb "have." Models and theoretical framework are superior in some respects to constituent comparison and conversion models. (CHK)

Research is reported in which a memory-for-marked-semantic-features theory was juxtaposed to a memory-for-meaning theory. The results were interpreted as supporting a global memory-for-meaning theory. (Author/RM)

A set of experiments are reported in which it was found that most subjects were better at identifying both meaning and wording changes in concrete sentences and subjects took significantly longer to encode and decode the abstract sentences. Implications of these findings are discussed. (Author/RM)

Two experiments examine the extent to which the representation of a sentence depends upon the overall nature of a subject's task, in this case, memorization of a sentence and providing a continuation for a sentence. (AM)

Presents evidence in support of the ordered search model of word meaning computation in sentence contexts. This model hypothesizes that access to multiple meanings occurs in a fixed order regardless of context. (AM)