Crosslinguistic evidence against interference fromextra-sentential distractors

Daniela Mertzen, Anna Laurinavichyute

Abstract: Cue-based retrieval theories of sentence processing posit that long-distance dependencyformation is guided by a cue-based retrieval mechanism: dependents are retrieved viaretrieval cues associated with a verb. When retrieval cues match multiple similaritems in memory, this leads to cue-based retrieval interference. A landmark study byVan Dyke and McElree tested interference from sentence-external items: retrievalcues were manipulated to (mis-)match semantically similar items presented prior toa target dependency. The support for interference of this type is weak, and onlycomes from English object cleft constructions. Our study provides a cross-linguisticinvestigation of interference from sentence-external items: Three eyetracking studies inEnglish, German and Russian tested interference in the online processing of filler-gapdependencies under varying task demands. A fourth study attempted to replicatethe Van Dyke and McElree study using self-paced reading. Bayes factors analysesshow cross-linguistic evidence against interference from sentence-external items. Abroader implication from these data is that cue-based retrieval interference is drivenby sentence-internal distracting items, suggesting that a cue-based search is restrictedto the current linguistic context