Late Closure in Psycholinguistics
Late closure is a principle in psycholinguistics that describes how people parse sentences. It suggests that when encountering a new word in a sentence, we tend to attach it to the most recent grammatical constituent, even if it might lead to an incorrect interpretation.
Here's a breakdown:
* Sentence Parsing: When we read or listen to a sentence, we don't process it all at once. Instead, we analyze it in parts, forming a "syntactic tree" as we go.
* Syntactic Tree: This tree represents the grammatical relationships between words in a sentence.
* Attaching Words: When we encounter a new word, our brains try to attach it to the existing syntactic tree in the most natural way possible.
* Late Closure Principle: This principle dictates that we favor attaching the new word to the last available constituent in the sentence, even if it might not be the most logical or meaningful connection.
Example:
Consider the sentence:
"The man saw the bird with binoculars."
Late Closure: According to late closure, we would initially assume "with binoculars" modifies "the bird," leading to the interpretation that the bird has binoculars.
However, the sentence's true meaning is that the man uses binoculars to see the bird. Late closure leads us to an initially incorrect interpretation because we automatically attach the phrase "with binoculars" to the most recent noun phrase ("the bird").
Why does this happen?
* Cognitive Efficiency: Late closure minimizes the computational effort required to parse sentences. It simplifies the process by avoiding complex grammatical restructuring.
* Frequency of Structure: Sentences with modifiers attached to the preceding noun phrase are more common in language. This makes late closure a reliable heuristic for parsing.
Implications:
* Ambiguity: Late closure can contribute to ambiguity in sentence interpretation.
* Reading Time: Studies show that people take longer to process sentences where late closure leads to an incorrect interpretation.
* Garden Path Sentences: Sentences designed to exploit late closure and lead to an initial misinterpretation are called "garden path sentences." They illustrate the powerful influence of this principle.
In summary, late closure is a key principle in psycholinguistics that explains how we parse sentences. It highlights the trade-off between cognitive efficiency and potential misinterpretations in language processing.