Doctoral Dissertation Research: The interaction of discourse status and memory retrieval in real time language processing

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

This dissertation research project explores the cognitive underpinnings of how humans read and comprehend sentences. More specifically, the project will advance linguistic theories in semantics and pragmatics by investigating how different types of linguistic information in a discourse context are represented and processed. Results from this experimental investigation will inform our understanding of the interplay between working memory and language and psycholinguistics, and will potentially be of use to fields such as behavioral marketing and journalism, where understanding one’s interpretation of rhetorical and discourse structure is of crucial importance. The project will also enrich the co-PI’s mentoring and managerial skills, and will provide undergraduate assistants with valuable research experience. The project is comprised of multiple sentence processing experiments that will manipulate relative clause types that differ in discourse status--appositive relative clauses (ARCs) and restrictive relative clauses (RRCs)--to investigate the organization and maintenance of discourse structure and information in working memory. Multiple methods (self-paced reading and eye tracking) are deployed to assess the impact of relative clause type on reading costs: Number agreement attraction effects in ARC and RRC contexts are compared in Experiments 1–5; processing costs for subject- versus object-relative clauses are investigated in Experiments 6–7; and pronominal reference and presupposition resolution across ARCs and RRCs is examined in Experiments 8–11. Findings will contribute to the understanding of how discourse status impacts working memory retrieval in real-time language processing, and will also provide insight for advancing linguistic theories related to discourse structure. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.