ABSTRACT
A major problem for models of pronoun comprehension is to explain how pronouns are understood so readily despite the fact that they contain little information to assist in their interpretation and that they are frequently ambiguous. In tackling this problem, researchers have conceptualised pronoun comprehension as involving either a search process (e.g. Clark & Sengul, 1979) or a slot-filling process (Sanford & Garrod, 1981). According to the search model, a pronoun triggers a search for its referent in the mind of the reader or listener; according to the slot-filling model, the referent of the pronoun fills the slot identified by the pronoun. In more recent versions of this latter view, slot-filling is made possible because the pronoun is said to act as a cue to the retrieval of the referent (Greene, McKoon & Ratcliff, 1992). In this chapter, I will suggest that both search and slot-filling processes are used during pronoun comprehension. In order to do so, I will make use of Johnson-Laird’s theory of mental models.
