Class notes
SENTENCE PROCESSING
- Course
- Institution
Lecture notes of 8 pages for the course NEUROPSYCHOLOGY at UNN (LECUTRE 12/15)
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
hannahnewton21
Reviews received
Content preview
Lecture 12 – sentence processingLecture plan;
Sentence comprehension- language comprehension;
- Speech perception focuses on lower-level processes (e.g. phonological access, word
segmentation).
- Sentence processing (SP) focuses on higher-level processes (i.e. syntactic, lexical, and
semantic analyses).
- Two main levels of analysis in SP:
- syntactic analysis (parsing)
- semantic analysis (mapping between syntax and meaning)
- Pragmatics studies the intended (vs. literal) meaning. E.g., humour.
- Discourse and text studies focus on how the meanings of individual
utterances/sentences are integrated at the level of the story.
Logic of speech comprehension;
- This tree structure is one way in which a
sentence can be produced.
- Can also be seen in a linear model
Sentence processing terminology;
- Parsing = the process of building a syntactic representation during sentence
understanding. Leads to assigning the incoming words to their positions in a
sentence (syntactic nodes) and deriving the meaning
- Parser = abstract sentence processor
- Parse = a temporarily built interpretation (structure) in case of local ambiguity
Methods used to understand sentence processing;
- Monitoring tasks (phoneme, word, etc…)
- Probing and priming tasks
- Self-paced reading
- Eye movements in reading (and in the visual world)
- Neuroscience of SP (ERP, MEG, MRI, TMS)
, Ambiguity;
- Ambiguity is one of the most widely used tools for studying sentence production
- Understood in two levels = Global or local
Global;
- A sentence is globally ambiguous if it has multiple interpretations as a whole
- “Someone shot the servant of the actress who was on the balcony”
- “The cop chased the criminal with a fast car”
- “She sat on the chair covered in dust”
- “Time flies like an arrow “How many interpretations?
- Time moves as quickly as an arrow.
- A special kind of fly, “time fly”, likes arrows.
- Measure the speed of flies like you would measure the speed of an arrows!
- Unless prompted toward alternative(s), comprehenders are typically aware of the
most frequent/typical interpretation.
Syntactic trees;
- splitting up sentences, these can be simple or complex trees.
- Within a syntactic tree you can have high attachments phrases
and low attachment phrases
- e.g. the tourist used the telescope to see the astronomer. This
is a high attachment
- e.g. the astronomer saw that the tourist has a telescope. This is
low attachment.
Local ambiguity;
- Local ambiguities are different from global ambiguities as they are available only for
a short period – typically, at initial processing stages
- Once the remainder of the sentence is available, only one interpretation remains
- E.g. ‘the old train…’ this could mean about someone training or an actually train
- But when given the rest of the sentence ‘the old train…the young’ you know it can
only mean about training someone.
Garden path sentences;
- Garden-path sentences are somewhat artificial and infrequent (like speech errors).
They typically occur in written but not in spoken discourse.
- In written discourse, they can be disambiguated by punctuation e.g. “While Anna
dressed, the baby played on the floor”
- In spoken discourse, they can be disambiguated by intonation/stress/pauses
(Steinhauer & Friederici 2001; Frazier et al 2006; Snedeker & Trueswell 2003).
- A garden path occurs when the processor initially tries to build a wrong structure
causing a “dead-end" parse when later (disambiguating) input is inconsistent with
the initially predicted structure
- In this case, processor must “backtrack” and revise the parse. As a result, GP
sentences take longer to read, and they are often accompanied by reverse eye-
movements (regressions)
- Some garden paths are so strong that the parser may fail to recover from them e.g.,
“Fat people eat accumulates” = ‘fat - (that) people eat – accumulates’
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller hannahnewton21. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $7.03. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
76669 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now