Contrasting different context sources in processing lifetime-tense (in)congruence
Evidence from cumulative self-paced reading time experiments
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 17811491 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniela Palleschi (0000-0002-7633-2736, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, corresponding author), Camilo R Ronderos (0000-0002-7779-406X, University of Oslo), Pia Knoeferle (0000-0002-4350-6445, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Language and Cognition (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1866-9808 • E-ISSN: 1866-9859 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/langcog.2026.10068 |
| OpenAlex | W7144372140 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 56 |
The present study investigated the effects of (in)congruence between a referent’s lifetime (alive vs. dead) and verb tense during language processing, assessing to what extent these effects are modulated by the source of referent-lifetime knowledge. A referent’s lifetime status (dead vs. alive) was conveyed either via a known famous (Experiment 1) or unknown (Experiment 2) name, or was primed non-linguistically via a photograph of a known famous referent (Experiment 3). The findings suggest that referent-lifetime information influenced the processing of verb tense across the different context sources, but not at the earliest point possible (the verb). Instead, lifetime-tense congruence effects emerged two words later (Experiments 1 and 2), or in the sentence-final region (Experiment 3). The presence and size of nested effects were graded by lifetime context: larger congruence effects were elicited by Experiment 1 than by Experiment 2 in both tenses, with significant effects in the present perfect condition only in Experiment 3. In all, referent-lifetime status modulated tense processing in the expected direction, but with variations in whether effects emerge in post-verb regions or at sentence-end depending on how referent-lifetime knowledge was accessed. This temporal variability needs to be considered in accommodating context effects in processing accounts
Context effect · Information processing · Past tense · Referent · Verb · Language Development and Disorders · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Reading and Literacy Development
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| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |