Are nonadjacent collocations processed faster?

Numerous studies have shown processing advantages for collocations, but they only investigated processing of adjacent collocations (e.g., provide information). However, in naturally occurring language, nonadjacent collocations (provide some of the information) are equally, if not more frequent. This raises the question whether the same kind of processing advantage holds for nonadjacent collocations as for adjacent ones. This paper reports on an eye-tracking experiment in which participants read sentences containing either adjacent or nonadjacent collocations or matched control phrases. The results replicated the finding that collocations are processed faster than control phrases, and extended this finding to nonadjacent collocations. However, the results also suggest that the facilitative effect might be larger for adjacent collocations than for nonadjacent ones. (PsycINFO Database Record