Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT4) Practice Exam 2025 - Free CAT4 Practice Questions and Study Guide

The Tanenhaus study supports the interactionist approach to parsing, which posits that various sources of information, including syntax, semantics, and context, play a crucial role in understanding sentences. In this study, participants were observed in a real-time context where their eye movements revealed how they interpret language as it unfolds. The findings indicated that listeners do not wait for the complete structure of a sentence before beginning to interpret it; instead, they utilize information from multiple cues simultaneously to construct meaning. This aligns with the interactionist view that language processing is not strictly modular or linear, but instead, relies on the interaction of different cognitive processes occurring in parallel during comprehension. This approach highlights how context and visual information can influence parsing decisions as they happen, demonstrating the complexity and dynamic nature of language understanding.