Retrieval mechanisms in sentence comprehension
Name
890206930-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
11 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
e03a1b53a52cb7686b4e0c8042a91d4f
Author(s)
Whitlock, Jordan Ashley
Advisor(s)
David Caplan.
Date Issued
2014
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
This work investigates the nature of the memory mechanisms utilized in language comprehension. Through the use of the Speed Accuracy Tradeoff (SAT) paradigm (Wickelgren, 1977), healthy young adults were studied for the use of parallel or serial search mechanisms to understand syntactically complex sentences with multiple embeddings. Systematically designed sentence stimuli tested whether the relevant memory mechanism differs when reanalysis is required. Results indicated that sentence length and syntactic ambiguity affected overall accuracy of sentence comprehension. The rate in which information was retrieved did not vary for most sentence types, but may have been affected by length in one type of sentence (ambiguous "early closure" sentences). The data support a parallel, content-addressable retrieval mechanism for information in most sentences but may provide evidence for serial search in ambiguous sentences that require complex syntactic reanalysis.
Description
Thesis: S.M., Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, 2014.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (page 30).
Subjects
Harvard--MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology.
MIT Department
Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
Terms of Use
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