subject-relative clause;
object-relative clause;
working memory;
Chinese;
D O I:
10.1016/j.actpsy.2008.04.005
中图分类号:
B84 [心理学];
学科分类号:
04 ;
0402 ;
摘要:
This paper presents an experiment that compared high and low working memory span readers' abilities to process Chinese subject-relative and object-relative clause structures in a self-paced reading paradigm. Comprehension performance results indicated that the object-relative structure was easier to understand than the subject-relative structure. Reading time results showed that participants with low working memory span read the subject-relative structures more slowly than the object-relative structures, but there was no reading time difference for the high working memory span participants. The experiment provides further evidence that the Chinese subject-relative clause structure is more difficult to process than the Chinese object-relative clause structure. especially for low working memory span individuals. Furthermore, these results support a syntactic storage account of the observed complexity difference. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V.