The capacity theory of comprehension: New frontiers of evidence and arguments.

Just, Marcel Adam, Carpenter, Patricia A., Keller, Timothy A.·1996·Psychological Review
DOI 10.1037//0033-295x.103.4.773

Abstract

A capacity theory of comprehension (M.A. Just & P.A. Carpenter, 1992) has provided an integrated account of several central aspects of sentence comprehension, such as the processing of syntactic ambiguity, complex embeddings, syntactic (non) modularity, and individual differences, in terms of the working-memory capacity for language. Some of the evidence supporting the theory is questioned by G.S. Waters and D. Caplan (1996a). This article identifies some of Waters and Caplan's errors about the empirical support in Just and Carpenter (1992), evaluates Waters and Caplan's alternative hypothesis, and presents the results of a new neuroimaging study that supports capacity theory and not Waters and Caplan's separate resources hypothesis.

Cites (2)

  1. A capacity theory of comprehension: individual differences in working memory
    Just, Marcel A., Carpenter, Patricia A. · 1992 · Psychological Review
  2. Dissociation of Storage and Rehearsal in Verbal Working Memory: Evidence From Positron Emission Tomography
    Awh, Edward, Jonides, John, Smith, Edward E., Schumacher, Eric H., Koeppe, Robert A., Katz, Stewart · 1996 · Psychological Science

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Cited by (14)

  1. Linguistic complexity: locality of syntactic dependencies
    Gibson, Edward · 1998 · Cognition
  2. The brain basis of language processing: from structure to function.
    Friederici, Angela D. · 2011 · Physiological Reviews
  3. LIFESPAN PSYCHOLOGY: Theory and Application to Intellectual Functioning
    Baltes, Paul B., Staudinger, Ursula M., Lindenberger, Ulman · 1999 · Annual Review of Psychology
  4. Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
    Baltes, Paul B., Lindenberger, Ulman, Staudinger, Ursula M. · 2007 · Handbook of Child Psychology
  5. Cognitive control and parsing: Reexamining the role of Broca’s area in sentence comprehension
    Novick, Jared M., Trueswell, John C., Thompson-Schill, Sharon L. · 2005 · Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The capacity theory of comprehension: New frontiers of evidence and arguments. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037//0033-295x.103.4.773
The paper
Just, M. A., Carpenter, P. A., & Keller, T. A. (1996). The capacity theory of comprehension: New frontiers of evidence and arguments. Psychological Review. https://doi.org/10.1037//0033-295x.103.4.773

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