The effects of a five-digit memory load on joke and lexical decision tasks were measured. 72 college students read jokes ending with punchlines, consistent endings, or inconsistent endings and decided whether the endings produced jokes. Memory-loaded subjects were slower than nonloaded subjects, particularly on inconsistent endings which were surprising but not coherent with the body of the joke. Memory load had no effect on lexical decision time and did not interact with word frequency. The results supported the claim that working memory serves an integrating role in language comprehension.
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