How WM Load Influences Linguistic Processing in Adults: A Computational Model of Pronoun Interpretation in Discourse

Jacolien van Rij; Hedderik van Rijn; Petra Hendriks

doi:10.1111/tops.12029

How WM Load Influences Linguistic Processing in Adults: A Computational Model of Pronoun Interpretation in Discourse

Jacolien van Rij^*, Hedderik van Rijn, Petra Hendriks

^*Corresponding author for this work

Experimental Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

20 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the effect of working memory load on the interpretation of pronouns in different discourse contexts: stories with and without a topic shift. We discuss a computational model (in ACT-R, Anderson, 2007) to explain how referring expressions are acquired and used. On the basis of simulations of this model, it is predicted that WM constraints only affect adults' pronoun resolution in stories with a topic shift, but not in stories without a topic shift. This latter prediction was tested in an experiment. The results of this experiment confirm that WM load reduces adults' sensitivity to discourse cues signaling a topic shift, thus influencing their interpretation of subsequent pronouns.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	564-580
Number of pages	17
Journal	Topics in Cognitive Science
Volume	5
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12029
Publication status	Published - Jul-2013

Keywords

Working memory load
Language processing
Cognitive modeling
Pronouns
WORKING-MEMORY
INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES
RESOLUTION
COMPREHENSION

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10.1111/tops.12029

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How WM Load Influences Linguistic Processing in Adults A Computational Model
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title = "How WM Load Influences Linguistic Processing in Adults: A Computational Model of Pronoun Interpretation in Discourse",

abstract = "This paper presents a study of the effect of working memory load on the interpretation of pronouns in different discourse contexts: stories with and without a topic shift. We discuss a computational model (in ACT-R, Anderson, 2007) to explain how referring expressions are acquired and used. On the basis of simulations of this model, it is predicted that WM constraints only affect adults' pronoun resolution in stories with a topic shift, but not in stories without a topic shift. This latter prediction was tested in an experiment. The results of this experiment confirm that WM load reduces adults' sensitivity to discourse cues signaling a topic shift, thus influencing their interpretation of subsequent pronouns.",

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