Working memory and the revision of syntactic and discourse ambiguities.

Two hundred participants, 50 in each of 4 age ranges (19-29 years, 30-49 years, 50-69 years, 70-90 years) were tested for short-term working memory, speed of processing, and online processing of 3 types of sentences in which an initially assigned syntactic structure and/or semantic interpretation had to be revised. Self-paced reading times were longer for the segments that signaled the need for revision; there also were interactions of age and sentence type and speed of processing and sentence type, but not of working memory and sentence type on reading times for these segments. The results provide evidence that working memory does not support the processes that revise the structure and interpretation of sentences and discourse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).