The connectionist model theory - Essay Example

Lexically independent priming in online sentence comprehension Matthew J. Traxler Year of publication: 2008 of journal: Psychonomic Bulletin & ReviewVolume # of journal: 15(1) Page numbers: 149-155URL: http://pbr.psychonomic-journals.org/content/15/1/149.full.pdfAbstract: Two eye-tracking experiments investigated what happens when people read pairs of sentences that have the same syntactic structure. Previous experiments have shown priming in online sentence processing only when critical lexical material overlaps between the prime and the target sentence.

In the current study, participants were asked to read sentences containing modifier–goal ambiguities. Half of the target sentences were preceded by sentences with the same structure, and half were preceded by sentences with a different structure. In Experiment 1, the prime–target pairs had the same main verb. In Experiment 2, the prime–target pairs had different main verbs. Facilitated target sentence processing was observed in both Experiments 1 and 2 when the target sentences were preceded by a prime sentence with the same syntactic structure.

These results provide the first evidence of lexically independent, between-sentence structural priming in online sentence comprehension.Title: Priming Prepositional-Phrase Attachment during ComprehensionAuthors: Holly P. Branigan, Martin J. Pickering, and Janet F. McLeanYear of publication: 2005Name of journal: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and CognitionVolume # of journal: 31 (3)Page numbers: 468-481URL: http://internal.psychology.illinois.edu/~kbock/otherpubs/Branigan%20Pickering%20McLean%202005.

pdfAbstract: Strong evidence suggests that prior syntactic context affects language production (e.g., J. K. Bock, 1986). The authors report 4 experiments that used an expression–picture matching task to investigate whether it also affects ambiguity resolution in comprehension. All experiments examined the interpretation of prepositional phrases that were ambiguous between high and low attachment. After reading a prime expression with a high-attached interpretation, participants tended to interpret an ambiguous prepositional phrase in a target expression as highly attached if it contained the same verb as the prime (Experiment 1), but not if it containeda different verb (Experiment 2).

They also tended to adopt the high-attached interpretation after producing a prime with the high-attached interpretation that included the same verb (Experiment 3). Finally, they were faster to adopt a high-attached interpretation after reading an expression containing the same verb that was disambiguated to the high-attached versus the low-attached interpretation (Experiment 4).ReferencesBranigan, Holly P., Pickering, Martin J., and McLean, Janet F. “Priming Prepositional-Phrase Attachment during Comprehension.

” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. 2005. Vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 468-481. 16 February 2011 Traxler, Matthew J. “Lexically independent priming in online sentence comprehension.” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 2008. Vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 149-155. 16 February 2011