Electrophysiological indices of syntactic processing difficulty
Name
42025433-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
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17.73 MB
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Checksum (MD5)
bb72fa7bf028aecb674f3cbcd5717b45
Author(s)
Harris, Anthony R
Advisor(s)
Ken Wexler.
Date Issued
1998
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Two types of processing difficulty are examined by means of electrical recordings taken from the scalp. One type of difficulty seems to be related to syntactic structural anomalies and another is related with memory load due to syntactic complexity. An experiment dealing with structural difficulty reveals the sensitivity of the parser with the argument status of the elements being processed. Memory constraints come into play when processing complex but structurally sound text strings. A number of experiments in this thesis examine a purported metric of complexity, namely, a left anterior negativity. It is argued that the predictive aspects of the parser is responsible for the complexity metric.
Description
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 1998.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves [135]-[136]).
Subjects
Brain and Cognitive Sciences
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
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copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but
reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written
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