Grammatical predictions reveal influences of semantic attraction in online sentence comprehension: evidence from speeded forced-choice sentence continuations

Research in language processing has established that semantic information can influence (a) online sentence interpretation when syntactic cues are indeterminate, and (b) offline judgments of syntactically unambiguous but semantically anomalous sentences. The question of whether semantic information can influence online sentence interpretation when semantic cues oppose unambiguous syntax remains unanswered. We investigate this question using two speeded forced-choice sentence continuation studies. Under time constraints, participants continued sentence fragments such as “The hearty meal was devouring...” (Attraction Violation) and “The sealed envelope was devouring...” (No-Attraction Violation) with either BY or THE. Although participants had an overall preference to continue all fragments with THE, they were more likely to choose BY in Attraction Violation than No-Attraction Violation sentences. When choosing THE, participants took longer in the Attraction Violation condition. These results suggest that semantically attractive interpretations can be pursued online even in the face of unambiguous but contradictory syntactic cues. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 21 September 2014 Accepted 29 April 2016