Cognitive control affects the reanalysis of reduced complement clause ambiguities

Abstract

Cognitive control (CC) affects the ability to revise an incorrect parse. It has been shown to be implicated in detecting and resolving conflicts between semantic and syntactic cues during sentence processing. Previous studies in this area have primarily found CC effects with sentences requiring relatively substantial reanalyses, which may be expected to draw more on CC. This study investigates whether CC is also implicated in the processing of ambiguous sentences requiring relatively minor reanalysis. Participants read reduced complement-clause ambiguities in a self-paced reading task. The plausibility of the initial analysis was manipulated. N-back data were collected to assess CC abilities. N-back score interacted with plausibility at the sentence regions signalling the need for reanalysis. The findings show that CC is implicated even in relatively simple sentence reanalyses when conflict between semantic and syntactic cues must be resolved.