Integration of Visual Information about the Speaker during Sentence Processing

Abstract

Do sentence meaning and contextual information get integrated in one-step or is the integration of extra-linguistic variables delayed to a second step? There are findings which point in the direction of one-step models of language comprehension. However, as of yet it is unclear to what extent these reflect low-level associations. To investigate this possibility, we manipulated the polarity of the sentences. A negative sentence still includes the critical word but now describes a plausible situation and should thus not lead to comprehension difficulties unless these are based on low-level associations. In two phrasal self-paced reading studies, we found a mismatch effect independent of polarity early on in the sentence on the phrase involving the critical word and the following phrase. An interaction appeared only at the sentence end, reflecting the mismatch effect for affirmative but not for negated sentences on that phrase. These results suggest an early word-based effect. Readers seem not to fully integrate the meaning of a sentence and the extra-linguistic information about a speaker until the end of a sentence – which seem to fit well with two-step models of comprehension. The influence of pragmatic aspects of negation in speaker-based mismatch effects are discussed.