Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Previous research has shown that modified noun phrases(henceforth NPs) are subsequently retrieved faster thanunmodified NPs. This effect is often called the “semanticcomplexity effect”. However, little is known about itsmechanisms and underlying factors. In this study, we testedwhether this effect is truly caused by the semantic informationadded by the modification, or whether it can be explained bythe sheer amount of time that the processor spends expectingor maintaining an NP in the encoding phase. The resultsshowed that time spent expecting or maintaining an NP canexplain the effect over and above semantic and/or syntacticcomplexity. Our results challenge the current memory-basedmechanisms for the modification effect such as the“distinctiveness” and “head-reactivation” accounts, and offernew and valuable insight into the memory processes duringsentence comprehension.