Barclay et al.: "Comprehension and Semantic Flexibility" (1974)

This paper reports on a number of experiments which aim at showing that people highlight specific properties of a noun when they hear it in a sentence. Reading the sentences He tuned the piano and He lifted the piano, you thus form two different representations (or "encodings") of the concept "piano" in working memory.

The paper uses four different cued recall experiments to investigate this effect:

1. Sentence objects are recalled based on feature cues: Something heavy cues He lifted the piano.
2. Sentence objects are recalled based on feature cues, but now with control sentences that differ only on the objects: Something heavy cues He lifted the infant.
3. Whole sentences are recalled based on object-feature cues: Pianos are heavy cues He lifted the piano.
4. Whole sentences are recalled based on object-feature cues as well as object cues: Piano cues He lifted the piano.

The materials are not reprinted in the paper.