Decision processes during sentence comprehension: Effects of lexical item difficulty and position upon decision times

Abstract

In this study 40 college Ss listened to 60 English sentences and attempted to, (a) press a button whenever a word in a sentence began with a /b/, and (b) comprehend the sentences. Reaction times (RT) of the button-push responses were recorded. The words starting with /b/ (target words) occurred either early or late in the sentences and, in addition, they were immediately preceded by words of either high or low frequency in the language. Average RT was significantly longer when the target word occurred after low frequency or hard words than when the target word occurred after easy words. In addition, RT was significantly longer when target words occurred early as opposed to late in the sentences. The results were discussed in terms of a decision-making conception of sentence comprehension.