Library science

Interference (communication)

Linguistics

Cognitive psychology

Philosophy

Statistics

Contrast (vision)

Chromatography

Agreement

Telecommunications

Computer science

Computer network

Thermodynamics

Physics

Psychology

Mathematics

Verb

Artificial intelligence

Sentence

Matching (statistics)

Chemistry

Sample (material)

Channel (broadcasting)

Subject (documents)

Journal of Memory and Language

Cue-based retrieval theories in sentence processing predict two classes of interference effect: (i) Inhibitory interference is predicted when multiple items match a retrieval cue: cue-overloading leads to an overall slowdown in reading time; and (ii) Facilitatory interference arises when a retrieval target as well as a distractor only partially match the retrieval cues; this partial matching leads to an overall speedup in retrieval time. Inhibitory interference effects are widely observed, but facilitatory interference apparently has an exception: reflexives have been claimed to show no facilitatory interference effects. Because the claim is based on underpowered studies, we conducted a large-sample experiment that investigated both facilitatory and inhibitory interference. In contrast to previous studies, we find facilitatory interference effects in reflexives. We also present a quantitative evaluation of the cue-based retrieval model of Engelmann, Jäger, and Vasishth (2019).

Interference patterns in subject-verb agreement and reflexives revisited: A large-sample study