Gestalt-like representations hijack Chunk-and-Pass processing.

Christiansen & Chater (C&C) make two related and somewhat contradictory claims, namely that the ever abstract language representations built during Chunk-and-Pass processing allow for ever greater interference from extra-linguistic information, and that it is nevertheless the language system that re-codes incoming information into abstract representations. I analyse these claims and discuss evidence suggesting that Gestalt-like representations hijack Chunk-and-Pass processing.