Does discourse priming change reference comprehension strategies?

话语启动会改变参考理解策略吗？

• 批准号: 1917840
• 负责人: Jennifer Arnold
• 金额: $ 47.6万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1917840&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Does; discourse; priming; change; reference

How are your mental strategies for understanding language influenced by your experience? Research suggests that people track their language experience, and they know for example that the more common interpretation of "ear" is as a body part and not a piece of corn. But a lot less is known about how language experience changes the way we interpret larger chunks of discourse. For example, an important part of language understanding is interpreting reference. In "Ana saw Liz. She waved", people need to figure out whether "She" refers to Ana or Liz. Do people pay attention to the frequency of referential patterns, and use this to interpret ambiguous pronouns? Recent findings suggest they might. In our example, most people tend to assume that "she" refers to Ana, who is the subject of the previous clause. But this bias toward the subject is weakened if people have recently read many stories where the non-subject gets re-mentioned, as when the pronoun is rendered unambiguous in context by the gender of the discourse participants (e.g., Matt saw Lyn. She waved.). This suggests that people shift their strategies on the basis of the most frequent reference patterns in context. But researchers do not know exactly how these biases are learned. For example, do people learn biases separately for each verb or verb class, or do they assume that frequencies of reference can be generalized across sentence types? How much exposure is necessary, and of what type? The proposed project tests these questions with adults. Participants read numerous "priming" stories that display one type of reference, for example where the subject character gets re-mentioned, or the non-subject character gets mentioned. The critical question is whether this changes the way people interpret ambiguous pronouns, like "she" in the Ana/Liz example above. All priming stories use unambiguous reference, for example in mixed-gender stories so the pronoun referent is clear. The first set of experiments tests the types of generalizations people draw, for example across verbs or verb types, or based on syntactic vs. semantic information. The second set of experiments tests the conditions necessary for learning, for example the amount or type of input needed. This project is one of the first studies to examine how the frequency of discourse structures influences the strategies people use for pronoun comprehension. This builds on other recent evidence that language comprehension strategies can be learned from the frequencies of language input. This project will help demonstrate how the mind uses statistics from the environment to shape cognitive processing. Results will be important for developing models of how higher-level language comprehension is influenced by experience, and for developing interventions to address problems with poor reading and listening comprehension.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

你理解语言的心理策略是如何受到你的经历的影响的？研究表明，人们跟踪他们的语言经验，他们知道，例如，“耳朵”更常见的解释是作为身体的一部分，而不是一块玉米。但是，关于语言体验如何改变我们解释大块话语的方式，我们知之甚少。例如，语言理解的一个重要部分是口译参考。在“安娜看到利兹。她挥手了”，人们需要弄清楚“她”是指安娜还是丽兹。人们是否注意指称模式的频率，并以此来解释歧义代词？最近的研究结果表明，他们可能。在我们的例子中，大多数人倾向于认为“她”指的是Ana，她是上一个从句的主语。但是，如果人们最近读了许多非主语被重新提及的故事，这种对主语的偏见就会减弱，比如当代词在上下文中被话语参与者的性别所明确时（例如，马特看到了林恩。她挥挥手。）这表明，人们根据上下文中最常见的参考模式来改变他们的策略。但研究人员并不确切知道这些偏见是如何习得的。例如，人们是对每个动词或动词类别分别学习偏见，还是假设指称的频率可以在句子类型中普遍化？需要多少曝光，以及什么类型？该项目将在成年人中测试这些问题。参与者阅读了大量的“启动”故事，这些故事显示了一种类型的参考，例如，主题人物被再次提及，或者非主题人物被提及。关键的问题是，这是否会改变人们解释歧义代词的方式，比如上面安娜/利兹例子中的“她”。所有的启动故事都使用明确的指称，例如在混合性别的故事中，代词指称是明确的。第一组实验测试人们得出的概括类型，例如跨动词或动词类型，或基于句法与语义信息。第二组实验测试学习所需的条件，例如所需输入的数量或类型。本研究是第一个探讨语篇结构频率如何影响人们使用代词理解策略的研究。这建立在其他最近的证据表明，语言理解策略可以从语言输入的频率学习。这个项目将有助于展示大脑如何使用来自环境的统计数据来塑造认知过程。结果将是重要的发展模式，如何更高层次的语言理解是受经验的影响，并制定干预措施，以解决问题与穷人的阅读和听力理解。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

项目成果

The Frequency of Referential Patterns Guides Pronoun Comprehension.

指称模式的频率指导代词的理解。

• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Journal of experimental psychology
• 作者: Johnson, E. D.;Arnold, J.E.
• 通讯作者: Arnold, J.E.

Learning the statistics of pronoun reference: By word or by category?

学习代词参考的统计：按单词还是按类别？

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105546
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Cognition
• 影响因子: 3.4
• 作者: Ye, Yining;Arnold, Jennifer E.
• 通讯作者: Arnold, Jennifer E.

Discourse‐level adaptation in pronoun comprehension

代词理解中的语篇水平适应

• DOI: 10.1111/lnc3.12481
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Language and Linguistics Compass
• 影响因子: 2.5
• 作者: Ye, Yining;Arnold, Jennifer E.
• 通讯作者: Arnold, Jennifer E.