The role of inhibitory control in garden-path recovery

[摘要] The role of inhibitory control in garden-path recovery was examined in two self-paced reading experiments. Participants read sentence primes that were either garden-path or non-garden-path and that included an equi-biased or a transitive-biased verb. They then read target sentences. The primes resolved against the preferred transitive analysis while the targets resolved towards that analysis. In Experiment 1, younger comprehenders showed an inhibitory effect of garden-path primes on target processing when the verbs were equi-biased and a facilitatory effect when the verbs were transitive-biased. In Experiment 2, a patient with an inhibition deficit and LIFG damage showed a normal prime processing pattern with equi-biased verbs but an abnormal prime processing pattern with transitive-biased verbs. Taken together, the results argue for an involvement of inhibitory control in garden-path recovery. The results further argue that inhibitory control efficiency is modulated by the strength of the bias towards the incorrect analysis.

[发布机构] Rice University

[效力级别] Cognitive