Number to Disambiguate Temporarily Ambigous Sentences
This study is expanding on previous research to understand how we process confusing sentences (“Put the cat on the napkin in the box”). Prior research has shown that when we hear confusing sentences while looking at images, we look for cues in the sentence to help us know which picture is being talked about. We know from this research if you have two pictures of a cat on the screen, where one is on a napkin but one is by itself, we expect to hear a clarifying element in the sentence to tell us which cat to look at. For example if on the screen is a picture of a cat on a napkin, a cat, a napkin, and a box, when we hear “Put the cat on the napkin…” we expect to hear “on the box.” However, if there is only one picture of a cat on the screen we don’t expect to hear “on the box” since we already know which cat is being referred to. This can cause brief confusion in the listener.
The current study is interested in how plurals will affect the listener. To understand this, we are tracking where adult English speakers look while listening to a sentence (“Put the cat on the napkin in the box) and looking at multiple pictures on a screen.