ABSTRACT
One of the hallmarks of human behavior is that it reflects the rapid integration of constraints from an often large number of sources, in a manner that is flexible, responsive to novel situations, and apparently effortless. This is true in virtually every sensorimotor activity in which we engage, whether it be vision, motor activity or audition, and is also particularly evident in the domain of language. There is now abundant evidence suggesting that processing of language requires the integration of information at a variety of levels: grammatical structure, meaning, discourse, world-knowledge, and so on (Bates & MacWhinney, 1989; Clifton, 1993; Jurafsky, 1996; McClelland, St. John, & Taraban, 1989; MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seidenberg, 1994; Spivey-Knowlton & Sedivy, 1995; Spivey-Knowlton, Trueswell & Tanenhaus, 1993; Swinney, 1979; Tanenhaus & Trueswell, 1995).
