Memory Limitations in Sentence Comprehension

Memory Limitations in Sentence Comprehension PDF Author: Sabrina Gerth
Publisher: Universitätsverlag Potsdam
ISBN: 3869563214
Category : Grammar, Comparative and general
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
This dissertation addresses the question of how linguistic structures can be represented in working memory. We propose a memory-based computational model that derives offline and online complexity profiles in terms of a top-down parser for minimalist grammars (Stabler, 2011). The complexity metric reflects the amount of time an item is stored in memory. The presented architecture links grammatical representations stored in memory directly to the cognitive behavior by deriving predictions about sentence processing difficulty. Results from five different sentence comprehension experiments were used to evaluate the model's assumptions about memory limitations. The predictions of the complexity metric were compared to the locality (integration and storage) cost metric of Dependency Locality Theory (Gibson, 2000). Both metrics make comparable offline and online predictions for four of the five phenomena. The key difference between the two metrics is that the proposed complexity metric accounts for the structural complexity of intervening material. In contrast, DLT's integration cost metric considers the number of discourse referents, not the syntactic structural complexity. We conclude that the syntactic analysis plays a significant role in memory requirements of parsing. An incremental top-down parser based on a grammar formalism easily computes offline and online complexity profiles, which can be used to derive predictions about sentence processing difficulty.

Memory Limitations in Sentence Comprehension

Memory Limitations in Sentence Comprehension PDF Author: Sabrina Gerth
Publisher: Universitätsverlag Potsdam
ISBN: 3869563214
Category : Grammar, Comparative and general
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
This dissertation addresses the question of how linguistic structures can be represented in working memory. We propose a memory-based computational model that derives offline and online complexity profiles in terms of a top-down parser for minimalist grammars (Stabler, 2011). The complexity metric reflects the amount of time an item is stored in memory. The presented architecture links grammatical representations stored in memory directly to the cognitive behavior by deriving predictions about sentence processing difficulty. Results from five different sentence comprehension experiments were used to evaluate the model's assumptions about memory limitations. The predictions of the complexity metric were compared to the locality (integration and storage) cost metric of Dependency Locality Theory (Gibson, 2000). Both metrics make comparable offline and online predictions for four of the five phenomena. The key difference between the two metrics is that the proposed complexity metric accounts for the structural complexity of intervening material. In contrast, DLT's integration cost metric considers the number of discourse referents, not the syntactic structural complexity. We conclude that the syntactic analysis plays a significant role in memory requirements of parsing. An incremental top-down parser based on a grammar formalism easily computes offline and online complexity profiles, which can be used to derive predictions about sentence processing difficulty.

Sentence Processing

Sentence Processing PDF Author: Roger P. G. van Gompel
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1135047278
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
What are the psychological processes involved in comprehending sentences? How do we process the structure of sentences and how do we understand their meaning? Do children, bilinguals and people with language impairments process sentences in the same way as healthy monolingual adults? These are just some of the many questions that sentence processing researchers have tried to answer by conducting ever more sophisticated experiments, making this one of the most productive and exciting areas in experimental language research in recent years. This book is the first to provide a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of this important field. It contains 10 chapters written by world-leading experts, which discuss influential theories of sentence processing and important experimental evidence, with a focus on recent developments in the area. The chapters also analyse research that has investigated how people process the structure and meaning of sentences, and how sentences are understood within their context. This comprehensive and authoritative work will appeal to students and researchers in the field of sentence processing, as well anyone with an interest in psychology and linguistics.

Sentence Comprehension as a Cognitive Process

Sentence Comprehension as a Cognitive Process PDF Author: Shravan Vasishth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009064207
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Sentence comprehension - the way we process and understand spoken and written language - is a central and important area of research within psycholinguistics. This book explores the contribution of computational linguistics to the field, showing how computational models of sentence processing can help scientists in their investigation of human cognitive processes. It presents the leading computational model of retrieval processes in sentence processing, the Lewis and Vasishth cue-based retrieval mode, and develops a principled methodology for parameter estimation and model comparison/evaluation using benchmark data, to enable researchers to test their own models of retrieval against the present model. It also provides readers with an overview of the last 20 years of research on the topic of retrieval processes in sentence comprehension, along with source code that allows researchers to extend the model and carry out new research. Comprehensive in its scope, this book is essential reading for researchers in cognitive science.

The Origins of Grammar

The Origins of Grammar PDF Author: James R. Hurford
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199207879
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 808

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Book Description
The second in James Hurford's acclaimed two-volume exploration of the biological evolution of language explores the evolutionary and cultural preconditions and consequences of humanity's great leap into language.

Reanalysis in Sentence Processing

Reanalysis in Sentence Processing PDF Author: J. Fodor
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401590702
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
The topic addressed in this volume lies within the study of sentence processing, which is one of the major divisions of psycholinguistics. The goal has been to understand the structure and functioning of the mental mechanisms involved in sentence comprehension. Most of the experimental and theoretical work during the last twenty or thirty years has focused on 'first-pass parsing', the process of assigning structure to a sentence as its words are encountered, one at a time, 'from left to right' . One important guiding idea has been to delineate the processing mechanisms by studying where they fai!. For this purpose we identify types of sentences which perceivers have trouble assigning structure to. An important class of perceptually difficult senten ces are those which contain temporary ambiguities. Since the parsing mechanism cannot tell what the intended structure is, it may make an incorrect guess. Then later on in the sentence, the structure assignment process breaks down, because the later words do not fit with the incorrect structural analysis. This is called a 'garden path' situation. When it occurs, the parsing mechanism must somehow correct itself, and find a different analysis which is compatible with the incoming words. This reanalysis process is the subject of the research reported here.

The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Science

The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Science PDF Author: Susan F. Chipman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199842191
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Science emphasizes the research and theory most central to modern cognitive science: computational theories of complex human cognition. Additional facets of cognitive science are discussed in the handbook's introductory chapter.

Constraints on Language: Aging, Grammar, and Memory

Constraints on Language: Aging, Grammar, and Memory PDF Author: Susan Kemper
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0306469022
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Susan Kemper A debate about the role of working memory in language processing has become center-most in psycholinguistics (Caplan & Waters, in press; Just & Carpenter, 1992; Just, Carpenter, & Keller, 1996; Waters & Caplan, 1996). This debate concerns which aspects of language processing are vulnerable to working memory limitations, how working memory is best measured, and whether compensatory processes can offset working memory limitations. Age-comparative studies are particularly relevant to this debate for several reasons: difficulties with language and communication are frequently mentioned by older adults and signal the onset of Alzheimer's dementia and other pathologies associated with age; older adults commonly experience working memory limitations that affect their ability to perform everyday activities; the rapid aging of the United States population has forced psychologists and gerontologists to examine the effects of aging on cognition, drawing many investigators to the study of cognitive aging. Older adults constitute ideal population for studying how working memory limitations affect cognitive performance, particularly language and communication. Age-comparative studies of cognitive processes have advanced our understanding of the temporal dynamics of cognition as well as the working memory demands of many types of tasks (Kliegl, Mayr, & Krampe, 1994; Mayr & Kliegl, 1993). The research findings reviewed in this volume have clear implications - for addressing the practical problems of older adults as consumers of leisure ti- reading, radio and television broadcasts, as targets of medical, legal, and financial documents, and as participants in a web of service agencies and volunteer activities.

Bilingual Sentence Processing

Bilingual Sentence Processing PDF Author: Roberto Heredia
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 9780080500096
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
Bilingual Sentence Processing

The Handbook of Language Emergence

The Handbook of Language Emergence PDF Author: Brian MacWhinney
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119075386
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 651

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Book Description
This authoritative handbook explores the latest integrated theory for understanding human language, offering the most inclusive text yet published on the rapidly evolving emergentist paradigm. Brings together an international team of contributors, including the most prominent advocates of linguistic emergentism Focuses on the ways in which the learning, processing, and structure of language emerge from a competing set of cognitive, communicative, and biological constraints Examines forces on widely divergent timescales, from instantaneous neurolinguistic processing to historical changes and language evolution Addresses key theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues, making this handbook the most rigorous examination of emergentist linguistic theory ever

Acquired Aphasia

Acquired Aphasia PDF Author: Martha Taylor Sarno
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080525903
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 670

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Book Description
With chapters containing up to 50 percent new coverage, this book provides a thorough update of the latest research and development in the area of acquired aphasia. Coverage includes the symptoms of aphasia, assessment, neuropsychology, the specific linguistic deficits associated with aphasia, related disorders, recovery, and rehabilitation. This comprehensive compilation, written by some of the most knowledgeable workers in the field, provides an authoritative text and reference for graduate students, clinicians, and researchers. Chapters include up to 50 percent new coverage Provides update of latest research in the field Includes writings by the most knowledgeable workers in the field Comprehensive, exhaustive reference tool