SGER: Organization of Complex Narrative Event

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ABSTRACT This project seeks to gain access to the cognitive structure underlying linguistic expression. New technology in the domain of multi-media presentation may allow contemporary theories in semantics and discourse analysis to be tested empirically. The hypothesis to be investigated is that a subject employs a process of reduction in perceiving and interpreting a complex narrative event, organizing the event into a hierarchy of more and less important subevents. The investigator will develop and employ a novel methodology based on recording a complex stimulus event on a video laser disc, and then manipulating the presentation of the event to subjects in a variety of ways which will permit analysis of the subjects' responses. If the investigation is successful, it will become possible to analyze nonlinguistic narrative event structure with a new degree of precision and insight, and to arrive at a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of the relationship between a perceived nonlinguistic event and the linguistic expression of that event.