Overt Reanalysis Strategies and Eye Movements During the Reading of Mild Garden Path Sentences
Memory & Cognition, (2002)Abstract
An eye movement experiment examined the use of reanalysis strategies during the reading
of locally ambiguous but globally unambiguous Spanish sentences. Among other measures, the
experiment examined regressive eye movements made while readers were recovering from mild
garden paths. The sentences had an adverbial clause that, depending on the mood (indicative vs.
subjunctive) of the subordinate clause verb, could attach high (to the main verb of the sentence)
or low (to the verb in the subordinate clause). Although Spanish speakers favor low attachment,
the high attachment version is quite easily understood. Readers predominately used two
alternative strategies to recover from the mild garden path in our sentences. In the more
common reanalysis strategy, their eyes regressed from the last region (disambiguation+1)
directly to the main verb in the sentence. Following this, they re-read the rest of the sentence
fixating the next region and the adverb (the beginning of the ambiguous part of the sentence).
Less frequently, readers regressed from the last region (disambiguation+1) directly to the
adverb. We argue that both types of strategies are consistent with a selective reanalysis process
as described by Frazier and Rayner (1982).