COGNITIVE CAPACITY AND LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION

认知能力和语言理解能力

• 批准号: 2244226
• 负责人: MARCEL Adam JUST
• 金额: $ 14.08万
• 依托单位: CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1991
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1991-09-30 至 1996-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2244226
• 关键词: COGNITIVE; CAPACITY; LANGUAGE; COMPREHENSION

The proposed research will examine how the limited capacity of working memory constrains the on-line processing in language comprehension. Comprehension performance changes qualitatively and quantitatively when the resource demands of the task exceed the supply. The proposed research experimentally examines I what kinds of task demands exacerbate resource shortages, how resource shortages are accommodated by the, i system, and how individual differences in maximum capacity affect performance. The empirical studies examine working memory constraints on four aspects of language comprehension. One series of experiments investigates the relation between syntactic modularity and working memory capacity, examining the hypothesis that a resource-demanding interaction between syntactic and semantic processing occurs only in those Individuals and tasks in which the required resources are available. A second series examines whether the larger capacity of some individuals permits them to maintain multiple Interpretations of a structurally or lexically ambiguous sentence. A third series investigates how the storage of information over a text distance varies with the processing demands made by the intervening text. A fourth series develops the methodology of pupillometry to index the consumption of cognitive resources during language comprehension. In addition, the experimental methodologies include the measurement of gaze locations and durations during reading, measurement of word-by-word self- paced reading times, and cross-modal priming. The methodologies are used to answer questions about the time course, content, and intensity of processing. The theory will be instantiated as a computational model, namely an activation-based production system , in which both processing and storage are fueled by activation. In this model, the total amount of activation, available to the system has an upperbound that corresponds to the maximum capacity of an individual. The goal of the theory is to explain how the processing of language accommodates (or fails to accommodate) tile transient computational and storage demands that occur in language comprehension, and to thereby explain the variation in comprehension among tasks and individuals. One health-related implication of this research is that the theory will explain a dimension of individual differences that potentially encompasses not just normal variation in comprehension, but also variation due to extreme age, to stress, or to trauma. Second, the research develops new methodologies with clinical potential (relating eye fixations to cognitive processes and relating pupil dilation to the consumption of cognitive resources). Third, the research develops the theoretical analysis of a psychometric instrument (the reading span test) that may prove useful for measuring age and disease-related changes in language functioning.

拟议的研究将探讨有限的工作能力如何 记忆限制了语言理解的在线处理。 当以下情况发生时，理解能力会发生质和量的变化： 任务的资源需求超过供应。 拟议的研究 通过实验检查哪些类型的任务需要加剧资源 短缺，i 系统如何解决资源短缺问题，以及 最大容量的个体差异如何影响表现。 实证研究从四个方面考察工作记忆约束 的语言理解能力。一系列实验研究了 句法模块性和工作记忆容量之间的关系， 检查以下假设：之间的资源需求相互作用 句法和语义处理仅发生在那些个体中 所需资源可用的任务。 第二个系列 检查某些人的较大能力是否允许他们 对结构或词汇上不明确的事物维持多种解释 句子。 第三个系列研究如何存储信息 文本距离随干预的处理要求而变化 文本。 第四个系列开发了瞳孔测量方法来索引 语言理解过程中认知资源的消耗。在 此外，实验方法包括凝视测量 阅读过程中的位置和持续时间，逐字测量自我 节奏阅读时间和跨模式启动。 使用的方法 回答有关时间进程、内容和强度的问题 加工。 该理论将被实例化为一个计算模型，即 基于激活的生产系统，其中加工和存储 是通过激活来推动的。 在这个模型中，激活总量， 系统可用的上限对应于最大 一个人的能力。 该理论的目标是解释如何 语言处理适应（或无法适应）图块 语言中出现的瞬态计算和存储需求 理解力，从而解释理解力的差异 任务和个人。 这项研究的一个与健康相关的意义是，该理论将 解释可能包含的个体差异的一个维度 不仅是理解上的正常差异，而且还存在由于以下原因造成的差异： 年龄过大、压力或创伤。 二、研究新进展 具有临床潜力的方法（将眼睛注视与认知 过程并将瞳孔扩张与认知消耗联系起来 资源）。 第三，本研究开展了理论分析 心理测量仪器（阅读广度测试）可能被证明有用 测量与年龄和疾病相关的语言功能变化。