308 • CHAPTER 11 Language
upon hearing “in the box,” the person quickly makes a correction and looks back at
the apple (eye movement 3) and then at the box (eye movement 4), indicating the new
interpretation that the apple should be placed in the box.
Tanenhaus also measured participants’ eye movements as they listened to these
instructions while looking at the objects in ● Figure 11.8a, which is the same as the other
scene, except the pencil has been replaced by an apple on a napkin. This is called the
two-apple condition. When eye movements were measured while observing this scene
(Figure 11.8b), many participants looked fi rst at the apple on the napkin in response to
“Put the apple” (eye movement 1), and then moved to the apple that is on the towel in
response to “on the towel” (eye movement 2). Then, upon hearing “in the box,” the eyes
moved to the box (eye movement 3). Notice the difference in this situation, compared
to when there was just one apple. In this case, on the towel is interpreted as indicating
not that the apple should be placed on the other towel, but that the apple that is on the
towel should be picked up and moved.
This result provides a contrast between the syntax-fi rst approach and the interac-
tionist approach. The syntax-fi rst approach would predict that, based on the structure
of the sentence, the initial interpretation should be that the apple is to be placed on
the towel. This does occur in the one-apple condition, but the syntax-fi rst approach
also predicts that it should occur in the two-apple condition, because meaning is still
determined by the structure of the sentence (which is the same in the two conditions).
The fact that a different result occurs in the two-apple condition means that the listener
is taking both the syntactic information in the sentence and information provided by
the scene into account (also see Altmann & Kamide, 1999, and Chambers et al., 2004).
Although the controversy regarding whether the syntax-fi rst approach or the inter-
actionist approach is correct is still not resolved (Bever et al., 1998; Rayner & Clifton,
2002), evidence such as the results of the Tanenhaus experiment indicate that informa-
tion in addition to the structure of the sentence helps determine what a sentence means.
This is important, because in real life we rarely encounter sentences in isolation. Rather,
we encounter sentences while we are in specifi c environments, or as we are listening to
a conversation or reading a story.
That sentences occur within a context is particularly important for reading, because
sentences are typically part of a larger text or story. Thus, when we read a particular sen-
tence, we already know a great deal of information about what is happening from what we
have read before. This brings us to the next level of the study of language—the study of how
we understand text and stories (commonly called discourse processing or text processing).
As we will see, most research in text processing is concerned with how readers’ understand-
ing of a story is determined by information provided by many sentences taken together.●FIGURE 11.8 (a) Two-apple scene similar to the one for the Tanenhaus et al. (1995)
study; (b) eye movements while comprehending the task.(a) Two-apple condition (b) Eye movements1
23on the in the box (3)
towel (2)Put the apple (1)Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.