Comprehending facilitation and interference effects in picture-sentence processing:
Effects of recent spatial distance on abstract semantic interpretation.
Either Poster or Talk
Across three eye-tracking reading experiments, non-linguistic visual context
information (spatial distance between cards: far apart vs. close together) modulated
real-time comprehension of German sentences expressing either similarity (1) or
dissimilarity (2) between two abstract nouns. Spatial closeness, however, sometimes
facilitated and sometimes interfered with semantic similarity interpretation.
(1) ‘TalentNP1 andcoord. wisdomNP2 areVP1 indeedADV similarADJ, explainedVP2 the
professorNP3’
(2) ‘StupidityNP1
andcoord.
wisdomNP2
areVP1
certainlyADV
differentADJ,
explainedVP2 the professorNP3’
In Experiment 1, for 50% of all trials, and for all critical trials, playing cards
presented two nouns, which re-appeared in the ensuing sentence (‘related’ trials); for
the other 50%, cards were blank and thus ‘unrelated’ to the sentence. Spatial distance
(close vs. far) between two cards lead to faster first-pass and total reading times when
sentences expressed distance-congruent meaning ((1) vs. (2), respectively). To
investigate whether the same distance-similarity effects emerge when there was no
overt link between visual context and the following sentence, in Experiment 2 we
reverted the pattern of ‘related’ and ‘unrelated trials’: 50% of all trials, but never
critical trials, presented words on cards. All critical and some filler sentences were
preceded by blank cards. Instead of the previously observed congruence effects (faster
reading times for distance-similarity congruence), reliable ‘interference’ effects
emerged. We found longer reading times for sentences that expressed similarity
between two abstract nouns when the sentence was preceded by cards close to (vs. far
from) one another, and the opposite pattern for sentences expressing dissimilarity.
Furthermore, this pattern emerged only in total (but not first-pass) reading times for
the adjective region.
Both semantic interference and facilitation effects have previously been observed in
research on perceptual effects in sentence processing1-3, but it’s unclear why we
sometimes see facilitation and at other times interference-like effects. One difference
between Experiments 1 and 2 that could turn facilitation into interference is the
recency of card-distance information. To examine the role of recency, Experiment 3
was identical to Experiment 1 but we reversed the order of word and spatial distance
information and shortened the presentation of word information such that card
distance was the most recent (and perhaps the most salient) visual context information
before sentence reading. If recency of spatial information produces interference
effects, we should see this pattern in reading times.
Results of Experiment 3 showed a rapid interference trend at the NP2 (first-pass).
Post-hoc pairwise comparisons showed that the main effect of distance in first-pass
times for this region was statically significant only for sentences expressing
dissimilarity (see (2)). Reliable facilitation-like interaction effects appeared later in
the sentence (at the ADJ region, for first-pass and regression path). These findings
suggest that distance-similarity facilitation versus interference effects are at least
somewhat sensitive to recency of spatial (card distance) information.
References:
1
Richardson et al. (2003). Spatial representations activated during real-time
comprehension of verbs. Cognitive Science 27, 767-780.
2
Kaschak et al. (2005). Perception of motion affects language processing. Cognition
94, B79-B89.
3
Wassenburg, S. & Zwaan, R. (2010). Readers routinely represent implied object
rotation. QJEP 63, 1665-1670.