{"pk":27278,"title":"Chunking Ability Shapes Sentence Processing at Multiple Levels of Abstraction","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Several recent empirical findings have reinforced the notion\nthat a basic learning and memory skill—chunking—plays a\nfundamental role in language processing. Here, we provide\nevidence that chunking shapes sentence processing at multiple\nlevels of linguistic abstraction, consistent with a recent\ntheoretical proposal by Christiansen and Chater (2016).\nIndividual differences in chunking ability at two different\nlevels is shown to predict on-line sentence processing in\nseparate ways: i) phonological chunking ability, as assessed\nby a variation on the non-word repetition task, predicts\nprocessing of complex sentences featuring phonological\noverlap; ii) multiword chunking ability, as assessed by a\nvariation on the serial recall task, is shown to predict reading\ntimes for sentences featuring long-distance number agreement\nwith locally distracting number-marked nouns. Together, our\nfindings suggest that individual differences in chunking\nability shape language processing at multiple levels of\nabstraction, consistent with the notion of language acquisition\nas learning to process.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"sentence processing; chunking; learning;\nmemory; usage-based approach; language"}],"section":"Posters: Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/75v9j2fc","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Stewart","middle_name":"M.","last_name":"McCauley","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Liverpool","department":""},{"first_name":"Erin","middle_name":"S.","last_name":"Isbilen","name_suffix":"","institution":"Cornell University","department":""},{"first_name":"Morten","middle_name":"H.","last_name":"Christiansen","name_suffix":"","institution":"Cornell University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2017-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/27278/galley/16914/download/"}]}