Sentence Comprehension

Before I started doing research on talking, I studied how we understand language. It’s possible to study comprehension from many different angles, such as how we perceive speech or how readers draw inferences about what they’ve read. Most of my work investigated something that seems simple from the outside, how we turn the individual words of a sentence into an understanding of the sentence’s meaning.

Behind the scenes, we are doing a lot of work to understand sentences. One challenge is that words typically have many meanings. For example, dictionary.com lists 13 meanings for the word “understand.” Each of those meanings will be appropriate in some situation, and we have to figure out the right meaning for whatever we’re reading at that moment. The MacDonald & Hsiao (2018) chapter is an introduction to this field.

My work has emphasized how people’s language experience, especially reading experience, is essential for efficient comprehension. This point brings up the question of how researchers could measure how much reading experience different people have. The Acheson et al. (2008) paper investigates several different ways to measure how much time people spend reading. 

* Indicates that the article offers review, new theory, or response to other researchers.

Published Articles on Sentence Comprehension

Jacobs, C. L., & MacDonald, M. C. (2024).
Constraint satisfaction in large language models.
Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 39(10), 1231–1248.

*MacDonald, M.C. (2022).
A computational model of language comprehension unites diverse perspectives.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(49), e2217108119.

*MacDonald, M.C. & Hsiao, Y. (2018). 
Sentence Comprehension. 
In S-A. Rueschemeyer & G. Gaskell (eds). Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics, 2nd edition, (pp. 171-196). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Perry, L.K., Mech, E., MacDonald, M.C., & Seidenberg, M.S. (2018).
Influences of speech familiarity on immediate perception and final comprehension.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25, 431-439.

Hsiao, Y. & MacDonald, M.C. (2016).
Production predicts comprehension: Animacy effects in Mandarin relative clause processing.
Journal of Memory and Language. 89, 87-109. 

Willits, J., Amato, M.A., & MacDonald, M.C. (2015).
Language knowledge and event knowledge in language use.
Cognitive Psychology, 78, 1-27.

Hsiao, Y. & MacDonald, M.C. (2013). 
Experience and generalization in a connectionist model of Mandarin Chinese relative clause processing. 
Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 767.

Acheson, D.J. & MacDonald, M.C. (2011).
The rhymes that the reader perused confused the meaning:  Phonological effects on on-line sentence comprehension.
Journal of Memory and Language, 65, 193-207.

Amato, M. & MacDonald, M.C. (2010).
Sentence processing in an artificial language:  Learning and using combinatorial constraints. 
Cognition, 116, 143-148.

Gennari, S.P. & MacDonald, M.C. (2009). 
Linking production and comprehension processes: The case of relative clauses.
Cognition, 111, 1-23.

Christiansen, M.H. & MacDonald, M.C. (2009).
A usage-based approach to recursion in sentence processing.
Language Learning, 59, 126-161.

Wells, J.B., Christiansen, M.H., Race, D.S., Acheson, D.J., & MacDonald, M.C.  (2009). 
Experience and sentence processing:  Statistical learning and relative clause comprehension.
Cognitive Psychology, 58, 250-271.

Acheson, D.J., Wells, J.B., & MacDonald, M.C. (2008). 
New and updated tests of print exposure and reading abilities in college students. 
Behavior Research Methods, 40, 278–289.

Gennari, S.P. & MacDonald, M.C. (2008). 
Semantic indeterminacy and relative clause comprehension.
Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 161-187.

Gennari, S. P., MacDonald, M. C., Postle, B. R., & Seidenberg, M. S. (2007). 
Context-dependent interpretation of words:  Evidence for interactive neural processes.
Neuroimage, 35, 1278-1286.

Thornton, R., MacDonald, M. C., & Arnold, J. E. (2000).
The concomitant effects of phrase length and informational content in sentence comprehension.  
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 29, 195-203.

Seidenberg, M.S. & MacDonald, M.C. (1999). 
A probabilistic constraints approach to language acquisition and processing. 
Cognitive Science, 23, 569-588.

Thornton, R., MacDonald, M.C. & Gil, M. (1999). 
Pragmatic constraint on the interpretation of complex noun phrases in Spanish and English.
Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory & Cognition, 25, 1347-1365.

Pearlmutter, N.J. & MacDonald, M.C. (1995). 
Individual differences and probabilistic constraints in syntactic ambiguity resolution. 
Journal of Memory and Language, 34, 521-542.

MacDonald, M.C. (1994). 
Probabilistic constraints and syntactic ambiguity resolution. 
Language and Cognitive Processes, 9, 157-201.

*MacDonald, M.C., Pearlmutter, N.J. & Seidenberg, M.S. (1994).
The lexical nature of syntactic ambiguity resolution. 
Psychological Review, 101, 676-703.

Kurtzman, H.S. & MacDonald, M.C. (1993). 
Resolving quantifier scope ambiguities. 
Cognition, 48, 243-279.

MacDonald, M.C. (1993). 
The interaction of lexical and syntactic ambiguity. 
Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 692-715.

MacDonald, M.C., Just, M.A. & Carpenter, P.A. (1992). 
Working memory constraints on the processing of syntactic ambiguity. 
Cognitive Psychology, 24, 56-98.

MacDonald, M.C. & MacWhinney, B. (1990). 
Measuring inhibition and facilitation effects from pronouns. 
Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 469-492.

MacDonald, M.C. (1989). 
Priming effects from gaps to antecedents. 
Language and Cognitive Processes, 4, 35-56.

MacDonald, M.C. & Just, M.A. (1989).
Changes in activation levels with negation. 
Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 633-642.