Language Processing and Representational Constraints in Memory

在国家科学基金会的支持下，彼得·戈登博士和兰德尔·亨德里克博士将对人类记忆在语言理解过程中的功能进行为期三年的语言研究。他们关注的是工作记忆，这是一种在人们积极参与复杂任务时跟踪信息的记忆。语言理解包括识别和解释句子部分等复杂任务。这样的任务要求句子部分的中间表征被保存在工作记忆中，并在理解过程中被获取。该项目测试了一种假设，即工作记忆在语言和其他认知领域的限制反映了它在编码、存储和提取过程中对干扰的敏感性。这种干扰是由正在处理的物品的相似性引起的。本研究采用了三种互为补充的方法：阅读过程中的眼动跟踪、大量印刷语言语料库中的模式分析和语言理解过程中的记忆负荷任务。该项目更广泛的目标是通过将每种方法集中在两个中心问题上来追求：相似表达的接近如何影响语言处理，以及导致干扰的相似性的心理显著维度是什么？该项目的意义在于，它将促进人们对语言和认知的其他方面，特别是记忆之间的关系的了解。对心理生活关键方面所涉及的认知过程的组织进行基础科学研究，将有助于以后开发更多实用的目标。这些措施包括创造有效的信息技术、阅读教学以及语言障碍的诊断和治疗。

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Peter Gordon and Randall Hendrick will conduct three years of linguistic research on the functions of human memory during language comprehension. Their focus is working memory, which is the memory that keeps track of information as people actively engage in complex tasks. Language comprehension includes complex tasks like identifying and interpreting parts of sentences. Such tasks require that intermediate representations of sentence parts be held in working memory and accessed during comprehension. The project tests the hypothesis that working memory's constraints in language, and other cognitive domains, reflect its susceptibility to interference during encoding, storage, and retrieval. This interference arises from the similarity of the items being processed. This research uses three complementary methods: eye tracking during reading, analyses of patterns in large corpora of printed language, and memory load tasks during language comprehension. The broader aims of the project are pursued by focusing each method on two central issues: How is language processing affected by the proximity of similar expressions, and what are the psychologically salient dimensions of similarity that cause interference? The significance of the project is that it will advance knowledge of the relationship between language and other aspects of cognition, particularly memory. Basic scientific research on the organization of the cognitive processes involved in crucial facets of mental life will be of benefit for later development of more applied goals. These include the creation of effective information technology, the teaching of reading, and the diagnosis and treatment of language impairment.