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.

Pupillary responses reflect ambiguity resolution in pronoun processing

“…Although they introduce potential ambiguity, listeners usually resolve pronouns correctly on the basis of available information. Several semantic and discourse factors have been found to influence pronoun resolution, including grammatical role parallelism (Branigan, Pickering, Liversedge, Stewart, & Urbach, 1995;Frazier, Taft, Roeper, Clifton, & Ehrlich, 1984;Smyth, 1994), gender information (Arnold, Eisenband, Brown-Schmidt, & Trueswell, 2000;Badecker & Straub, 2002;Ehrlich, 1980), antecedent prominence, accessibility, and topicality (Arnold et al, 2000;Chafe, 1976;Cunnings, Patterson, & Felser, 2014;Givón, 1983;Järvikivi, Pyykkönen-Klauck, Schimke, Colonna, & Hemforth, 2014;Spenader, Smits, & Hendriks, 2009;Van Rij, Van Rijn, & Hendriks, 2013), and interference of prominent competitor antecedents (Badecker & Straub, 2002;Clackson, Felser, & Clahsen, 2011). In addition, syntactic constraints play a role (Hendriks & Spenader, 2006;Reinhart & Reuland, 1993).…”

“…We expect that more cognitive effort is needed when processing a pronominal subject or object compared to a non-ambiguous subject NP or reflexive object (cf., e.g. Hendriks, Van Rijn, & Valkenier, 2007;Van Rij, Van Rijn, & Hendriks, 2010;Van Rij et al, 2013), a difference that should be reflected in fewer topic-continuation interpretations in referent selection and in longer response times (RTs).…”

Toward Cognitively Constrained Models of Language Processing: A Review

“…By manipulating, for example, the amount of experience (Van Rij et al, 2010), the amount of working memory capacity (Van Rij et al, 2013), or the rate of forgetting in memory (Sense et al, 2016), different performance levels can be achieved. This way, different individuals can be modeled and it can be investigated why certain mistakes may be made (explanations could be, for example limited experience, limited memory capacity, limited attention span).…”

“…A future ACT-R model can make use of working memory accounts (cf. Van Rij et al, 2013) to explain repetition preferences leading to such effects.…”

“…An interesting extension of the model would be one in which the discourse status of the referents would also be taken into account (cf. Van Rij et al, 2013). The extended model would need to integrate factors such as first-mention, frequency, recency, grammatical role and role parallelism (Lappin and Leass, 1994), and semantic role (Kong et al, 2009) to account for topicality and the discourse prominence of referents (Grosz et al, 1995), which plays an important role in pronoun resolution (Spenader et al, 2009).…”