Lexical Priming: priming involving the meaning of words semantics: meaning of words and sentences - ex of error in semantics : changing “the cats won’t eat” into “the cats won’t bake” - meaning doesn’t make sense Syntax: specifies the rules for combining words into sentences. - ex of error in syntax : “the cats won’t eating” because grammar is not correct Parsing :the grouping of words into phrases - it is a central process for determining the meaning of a sentence Temporary Ambiguity : the initial words of a sentence can lead to more than one meaning Garden Path Sentence: leads reader down a path that seems right but turns out to be wrong. 2 approaches to understanding how the parsing mechanism works - 1. Syntax-First approach to parsing: focuses on how parsing is determined by syntax ( the grammatical structure of the sentence); it assigns the central role to syntax with semantics coming into play later -> semantics activated only after syntax has determined the initial parsing - states that the parsing mechanism groups phrases together based on structural principles

- Late closure principle: states when a person encounters a new word, the person’s parsing mechanism assumes that this words is part of the current phrase so each new word is added to the current phrase for as long as possible - 2. Interactionist approach to parsing: proposes that syntax and semantics work simultaneously to determine the meaning of a sentence -> semantics come into play as a sentence is being read ex. the bird saw the man with the binoculars meaning: the bird is looking at the man who has binoculars Tanenhaus experiment: apple towel experiment; measured their eye movements as they were listening to the instructions, using a portable eye tracker - indicate that info in addition to the structure of the sentence helps determine what a sentence means Inferences: determining what the text means by using our knowledge to go beyond the information provided by the text Coherence: the representation of the text in a person’s mind so that info in one part of the text is related to the info in another part of the text Anaphoric Inference: inferences that connect an object or person in one sentence to an object or person in another sentence ex. John built the bird house. He did it all by himself Instrument inferences: inferences about tools or methods ex. john pounded the nails for the bird house ->we are inferring that he is using a hammer to pound the nails Causal inference : inferences that the events described in one clause or sentences were caused by events that occurred in a previous sentence ex. sharon took an aspirin. Her headache went away - we infer that taking the aspirin is what made her headache go away Situation model: mental representation of what a text is about - proposes that the mental representation people form as they read a story does not consist of information about phrases, sentences, or paragraphs, instead it is a representation of