Abstract
The validity of the schema integration model (Fujiki & Chujo, 2005a) was investigated. This model assumes that the process of forming the semantic representation of a sentence consists of repeating the integration of the schema belonging to the syntactic head word with constituents' schemata in the phrase. The model also assumes that a comprehender checks the consistency between the constituents' schemata and the requirements for integration into the slots of the head schema. According to the model, if these requirements were not satisfied, they would be extended to be coherent with the comprehender's world knowledge. In this study, we controlled the compatibility between representations of noun phrases and schema of verbs in order to verify whether the requirements of verb schemata were checked in the process of integration with the noun phrase. The results of Experiment 1 in which the sentences were presented using the moving window paradigm, supported the assumption of the model. In Experiment 2, each sentence was presented in a batch and eye movements were measured. The results indicated that the representation of the sentences were not completed in the first eye fixations on the words of the sentence, and extended the requirements of integration after the second fixation. These results indicate that the schema integration model is valid, and that the comprehender selected an efficient processing strategy to perform the multiple integrations of schemata during the online process of forming semantic representations in a sentence.
