Two eye-tracking experiments examined the effects of sentence structure on the processing of complement coercion, in which an event-selecting verb combines with a complement that represents an entity (e.g., "began the memo"). Previous work has demonstrated that these expressions impose a processing cost, which has been attributed to the…

Two experiments using a sentence recall task tested the effect of animacy on syntactic processing in Japanese sentence production. Experiment 1 and 2 showed that when Japanese native speakers recalled transitive sentences, they were more likely to assign animate entities earlier positions in the sentence than inanimate entities. In addition,…

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

Research supported in part by a graduate traineeship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to the author and by a grant from the Advanced Research Project Agency to the Harvard University Center for Cognitive Studies. (VM)

THE REPORT DESCRIBES 13 EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF LEARNING IN CHILDREN BETWEEN FOUR AND 12 YEARS OF AGE. THE EXPERIMENTS CONCERN--(1) THE ISOLATION CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH ELABORATIVE FACILITATION OF LEARNING OCCURS, AND (2) THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ELABORATION AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN LEARNING PROFICIENCY. BECAUSE CHILDREN LEARN NOUN PAIRS AND…

On the basis of experimental data, the author makes the following observations: (1) the basic encoding processes in speech, the schemas of order, first produce elementary underlying sentences; (2) underlying sentence structure is the controlling step in the organization of speech; (3) underlying sentence structure plays a central role in…