Anchoring and Grammar Effects in Judgments of Sentence Acceptability

Abstract

This study examined the relation between anchoring effects, as demonstrated in 1992 by Nagata, and grammar-based effects in judgments of sentence acceptability. 35 subjects judged the acceptability of target sentences representing six different syntactic types. There were highly robust differences among these sentence types arising from differences in sentence structure. For one group of subjects the target sentences were mingled with a long list of highly acceptable sentences (High Anchor Set). A second group saw the same target sentences with an Anchor Set in which one-third of the sentences were of very low acceptability (Mixed Anchor Set). Target sentences seen in the context of the Mixed Anchor Set were judged more acceptable (an anchoring effect); however, the effect of Anchor Set did not interact with other factors. The relative acceptability of the six target types was unchanged in the two anchor conditions. Implications for the psychological theory of sentence judgments are considered. In particular, it is argued that anchoring effects do not arise in the cognitive mechanisms that evaluate sentence structure.