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Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Interacts With Ambiguity During Sentence Comprehension, Sarah Key-Delyria, Todd Bodner, Lori J. P. Altmann

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Conventional opinion about using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) for examining sentence comprehension maintains that RSVP taxes working memory (WM), which probably affects sentence processing. However, most RSVP studies only infer the involvement of WM. Other cognitive resources, such as cognitive control or vocabulary may also impact sentence comprehension and interact with RSVP. Further, sentence ambiguity is predicted to interact with RSVP and cognitive resources to impact sentence comprehension. To test these relationships, participants read ambiguous and unambiguous sentences using RSVP and Whole-Sentence presentation, followed by comprehension questions that were targeted to the ambiguous region of the sentences. Presentation type …