Abstract

The proposed research will investigate the nature of the human sentence comprehension system by examining the influence of pragmatic plausibility on the computation of syntactic structure and sentence meaning. The experiments will specifically consider the relationship between plausibility computation, syntactic processing, and individual differences in working memory capacity. Basic behavioral measures of reading difficulty (self-paced reading, continuous anomaly judgment) will be used, along with two neurological measures, event-related potential (ERP) recording and event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (er-fMRI). These measures will be combined to yield more precise data about behavior and about the functional neuroanatomical loci of syntactic and semantic processes than has been possible with any of the measures alone. The results of these experiments have implications for nearly all theories of sentence processing and ambiguity resolution, as well as for the understanding of individual differences in language comprehension ability and of language impairment due to brain injury. The results should lead to more finely-specified psycholinguistic, neurological, and computational models of human language processing.

  Funding Agency

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DC005237-02
Application #
6620837
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BBBP-3 (01))
Program Officer
Cooper, Judith
Project Start
2002-02-01
Project End
2007-01-31
Budget Start
2003-02-01
Budget End
2004-01-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$466,382
Indirect Cost

  Institution

Name
Northeastern University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
001423631
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02115

  Publications

Gillespie, Maureen; Pearlmutter, Neal J (2011) Hierarchy and scope of planning in subject-verb agreement production. Cognition 118:377-97
Jamieson, Jeremy P; Harkins, Stephen G; Williams, Kipling D (2010) Need threat can motivate performance after ostracism. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 36:690-702
McFall, Sametria R; Jamieson, Jeremy P; Harkins, Stephen G (2009) Testing the mere effort account of the evaluation-performance relationship. J Pers Soc Psychol 96:135-54
Ditman, Tali; Holcomb, Phillip J; Kuperberg, Gina R (2007) An investigation of concurrent ERP and self-paced reading methodologies. Psychophysiology 44:927-35
Jamieson, Jeremy P; Harkins, Stephen G (2007) Mere effort and stereotype threat performance effects. J Pers Soc Psychol 93:544-64
Solomon, Eric S; Pearlmutter, Neal J (2004) Semantic integration and syntactic planning in language production. Cogn Psychol 49:1-46