TWENTY-EIGHT SS (SUBJECTS) WERE PRESENTED WITH COMPUTER-GENERATED AGRAMMATICAL STATEMENTS, AND ASKED TO CARRY OUT TWO TASKS ON EACH OF TWO EXPERIMENTAL DAYS. TASK 1 WAS A FORCED-CHOICE EXPERIMENT IN WHICH 50 PAIRS OF STATEMENTS WERE PRESENTED AURALLY TO EACH S, WHO HAD TO SELECT THAT MEMBER OF THE PAIR WHICH HE FELT WAS THE BEST APPROXIMATION TO A GOOD ENGLISH SENTENCE. IN TASK 2, SS WERE REQUIRED TO READ AND RANK EACH STATEMENT ON A SCALE RUNNING FROM ONE (COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE) TO FIVE (COMPLETELY ACCEPTABLE). A DIFFERENT ORDER OF STIMULUS PRESENTATION WAS EMPLOYED ON EACH EXPERIMENTAL DAY--14 SS WERE ASSIGNED TO ONE ORDER ON DAY 1, AND RECEIVED THE OTHER ORDER ON DAY 2. RESULTS SHOW THAT SS TEND TO PREFER THE SAME STATEMENT OVER ORDERS, AND THAT RANK AND PREFERENCE ARE HIGHLY CORRELATED. THERE ARE CONSIDERABLE DIFFERENCES IN PREFERENCE AMONG THE 50 PAIRS OF STIMULUS ITEMS. PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF THE DATA SUGGESTS THAT THIS TASK MAY YIELD INFORMATION RELEVANT TO THE LINGUISTIC AND IN PARTICULAR THE SURFACE SYNTACTIC COMPETENCE OF SS WHEN APPLIED TO AGRAMMATICAL STATEMENTS. SS APPEAR TO BE TRYING TO COPE WITH THE STATEMENTS BY COMPARING THEM TO ACCEPTABLE SEMANTICAL SYNTACTIC PATTERNS. THIS REPORT APPEARS IN "STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE BEHAVIOR, PROGRESS REPORT V," SEPTEMBER 1, 1967. (AUTHOR/AMM)