LANGUAGE PROCESSING DURING READING

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION: The research described in this proposal is concerned with on-line language comprehension processing during reading. In the proposal, a number of studies are outlined in which eye movement data are collected as subjects read sentences and text. The goal of the proposal is to continue the empirical and theoretical work on language processing that has been done in our laboratory over the last twenty years of this project. The proposed experiments deal with (1) the effects of predictability (of linguistic form and of informativity) on processing a word in context, (2) theories of sentence reanalysis, and (3) the extent to which syntactic analysis and semantic interpretation is immediate. The theoretical implications of the work for a theory of reading and on-line language processing will be developed. The research should be useful in further understanding the process of skilled reading and also help to reveal the relationship between skilled and poor reading.