Successful language comprehension requires the computation and integration of several conceptually distinct types of information. Two exigencies are the recovery of linguistic information from long-term lexical memory and the computation of a structured representation. This program of research investigates the essential nature of these component processes as they apply to language comprehension in normal, intact populations. The primary aim of the project is to specify the computational structure of lexical and syntactic processes, a necessary precursor to the development of well-specified computational models of natural language understanding. Using procedures that tap the time-course of processing and procedures that measure processing resources, we investigate whether these processes have an intrinsic serial or parallel capacity. We examine whether lexical retrieval processes recovery of the exhaustive set of syntactic structures associated with key elements in a sentence. Results in hand indicate that lexical retrieval is parallel but short of exhaustive, suggesting that limited retrieval constrains subsequent syntactic and interpretative processes. To better understand these constraints, experiments are designed to identify factors that control the probability of retrieving syntactic information from lexical representations. Concerning parsing operations, we investigate whether more than syntactic representation is computed during on-line processing. One set of experiments addresses the issue of parsing capacity at the level of immediate structure building, while other experiments examine how parsing routines respond to ambiguous material. Preliminary results suggest that several lexical syntactic structures are applied in parallel in the initial phase of structure building. Experiments are proposed to explore this finding further and to examine whether contextual information can restrict initial structure building operations. An additional set of experiments investigates how readers respond to temporarily ambiguous material, examining whether more than one representation is computed and maintained over an ambiguous region. Finally, a third set of experiments investigates how lexical and interpretative processes successfully converge on the correct interpretation of syntactically unambiguous but indeterminate structures. We argue that lexical and syntactic processes must be supplemented by a type of enriched interpretative processing.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01MH057458-01A1
Application #
2629305
Study Section
Perception and Cognition Review Committee (PEC)
Project Start
1998-05-01
Project End
2001-02-28
Budget Start
1998-05-01
Budget End
1999-02-28
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
1998
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
New York University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
004514360
City
New York
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
10012
Carrasco, Marisa; Giordano, Anna Marie; McElree, Brian (2006) Attention speeds processing across eccentricity: feature and conjunction searches. Vision Res 46:2028-40
Carrasco, Marisa; McElree, Brian; Denisova, Kristina et al. (2003) Speed of visual processing increases with eccentricity. Nat Neurosci 6:699-70
McElree, B (2001) Working memory and focal attention. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 27:817-35
Carrasco, M; McElree, B (2001) Covert attention accelerates the rate of visual information processing. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 98:5363-7
McElree, B; Carrasco, M (1999) The temporal dynamics of visual search: evidence for parallel processing in feature and conjunction searches. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 25:1517-39
McElree, B; Nordlie, J (1999) Literal and figurative interpretations are computed in equal time. Psychon Bull Rev 6:486-94
McElree, B; Dolan, P O; Jacoby, L L (1999) Isolating the contributions of familiarity and source information to item recognition: a time course analysis. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 25:563-82