Experimental Approach to Reference in Discourse: Working Memory Capacity and Language Comprehension in Russian

In the experimental psycholinguistic study we consider the correlation between one of activation in working memory factors (Kibrik 2010), namely a rhetorical distance to the pronoun antecedent and a successful reference resolution in Russian. Using Russian adaptation of the working memory span test from Daneman and Carpenter 1980 we demonstrated that a rhetorical distance is really a significant factor affecting referent activation as well as that working memory capacity is correlated with some referential processes. However, we did not find an interaction between rhetorical distance and working memory group. Thus, our results supported the Separate Language Interpretation Resource theory of working memory structure (Caplan and Waters 1999).