LEXICAL AND SYNTACTIC PROCESSES

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

The general research goal is to understand the detailed structure of human language processing systems and to determine the ways in which they relate to non-linguistic cognitive functions. This interaction of language and cognition provides a framework for a deeper understanding of the ways in which normal communicative functions may be compromised due to brain injury or disease. The theoretical issues of concern to us arise from the study of normal adult language users, and the projects we propose for support pursue fundamental language processing questions that rely on an established base of experimental findings. The studies described for the renewal encompass a number of basic lexical level and sentence level processes in both language production and language comprehension systems. The sequence of our research steps begins with normal processing studies and proceeds to specific extensions of our findings and methodologies for selected language disordered groups, including those with aphasia, acquired dyslexia, and AIzheimer's disease. Our lexical processing studies investigate basic word recognition and retrieval, with emphasis on visual processing systems and their response to orthographic and phonological representations for words. In addition, our work addresses word retrieval for language production where that retrieval is driven both by written inputs and by conceptual inputs. Our sentence processing studies investigate specific aspects of systems that assign phrasal and logical form to sentences, with special emphasis on structures that are discontinuous and, therefore, place significant on-line memory demands on processing success whether for comprehension or production. These structures include the assignment of conference relations and the assignment and interpretation of agreement and concord. In all of the areas of our study, we are committed to the cross-language comparisons of the processing effects that we identify, both in our study of normal processing and in our ultimate approaches to disordered language as well.