A fan effect in anaphor processing: effects of multiple distractors

Frontiers in Psychology

Kevin S. Autry¹ 

关键词: comprehension;    memory;    fan effect;    reading;    anaphor resolution;    antecedent;    distractor;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00818

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Research suggests that the presence of a non-referent from the same category as the referent interferes with anaphor resolution. In five experiments, the hypothesis that multiple non-referents would produce a cumulative interference effect (i.e., a fan effect) was examined. This hypothesis was supported in Experiments 1A and 1B, with subjects being less accurate and slower to recognize referents (1A) and non-referents (1B) as the number of potential referents increased from two to five. Surprisingly, the number of potential referents led to a decrease in anaphor reading times. The results of Experiments 2A and 2B replicated the probe-recognition results in a completely within-subjects design and ruled out the possibility that a speeded-reading strategy led to the fan-effect findings. The results of Experiment 3 provided evidence that subjects were resolving the anaphors. These results suggest that multiple non-referents do produce a cumulative interference effect; however, additional research is necessary to explore the effect on anaphor reading times.

【 授权许可】

CC BY